Forrest Mims is the most widely read electronics author in the world. His sixty books have sold over 7,500,000 copies and have twice been honored for excellence by the Computer Press Association. His "Engineer's Notebook" series of books for RadioShack are entirely hand-lettered and hand-illustrated to re-create the look of Forrest's own laboratory notebooks. His work has appeared in some 70 magazines and science journals, including Nature, Scientific American, Science, Popular Photography, New Scientist, Sky & Telescope, Popular Mechanics, Physics Today, Electronics, PC Magazine, and IEEE Spectrum.

Forrest's consulting clients have included the National Geographic Society, the National Science Teachers Association, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Forrest also teaches experimental Earth science once or twice a year at the University of the Nations at their campuses in Kona, Hawaii, and Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1993, he was named a Laureate in the Rolex Awards for Enterprise competition for his efforts in establishing a global ozone measuring network that used instruments of his own design.

In 1975, Forrest wrote The Altair 8800 Operator's Manual, the manual for the world's first personal computer. While he was writing the Altair manual, a couple of young programmers named Bill Gates and Paul Allen were creating a version of BASIC for the Altair. (That was the start of a company called Microsoft.) Thus, Forrest holds the honor of having written the very first book about personal computers.

Today, Forrest simultaneously carries out a variety of scientific and technical projects. He is currently working with the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin to compare measurements of atmospheric water vapor made from satellites and the surface. He is also a co-principal investigator for GLOBE, a network of 8000 schools in 83 countries that involves students in scientific research projects. In his spare time, he is very active in his local church and enjoys bicycle touring, photography (including remote-controlled aerial photography from kites and balloons), making measurements of atmospheric parameters, and reading. He has been married to Minnie for over thirty year and they have three children: Eric, Vicki, and Sarah. Forrest and Minnie make their home on beautiful Geronimo Creek near Seguin in Central Texas.

Selected Scientific and Technical Publications

F. M. Mims III and R. Lopina, Ram Air as a Method of Rocket Control, Proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Control and Flight Mechanics Conference, paper 70-970, August 1970.

F. M. Mims III, Relaxation Oscillators Provide Compact Drive for Injection Lasers, Electronics, 88-90, July 19, 1971.

F. M. Mims III, Eyeglass Mobility Aids for the Blind: Preliminary Report, Journal of the American Optometric Association, 43, 6, 673-676, 1972. (Invited paper.)

F. M. Mims III, An Infrared Eyeglass Mobility Aid for the Blind, Southwest IEEE Record, April 1972.

F. M. Mims III, Use LEDs, not Lasers, in Rangefinders, Electronic Design, 48-50. May 1972.

F. M. Mims III, An Active Infrared Mobility Aid for the Blind, Proceedings of the Electro-Optical Systems Design Conference, 14-18, June 1972.

F. M. Mims III, Operate Transistors in Avalanche Mode for Fast Pulses with High Current, Microwaves, 73, February 1973.

F. M. Mims III, Sensory Aids for Blind Persons, New Outlook for the Blind, 407-414, November 1973. (Invited general review paper.)

F. M. Mims III, Energy Radiating Mobility Aids for the Blind: Design Considerations and a Progress Report on an Eyeglass Mounted Infrared Aid, American Foundation for the Blind Research Bulletin, 27, 135-156, April 1974. (Invited paper.)

F. M. Mims III, LEDs Replace CRT in Solid-State Scope, Electronics, 110-111, June 26, 1975.

F. M. Mims III, Bidirectional Optoisolator, Electronics, 127, May 10, 1979.

F. M. Mims III, Optoelectronic Alarm Circuit is Time-Sensitive, Electronics, July 5, 1979.

F. M. Mims III, A Bright Future for Fiber Optic Communication, IEEE Potentials, 18-21, February 1984. (Invited general review paper.)

F. M. Mims III, The First Century of Lightwave Communications, International Fiber-Optic Communications, 10-26, February 1982. (Invited historical review paper.)

F. M. Mims III, Sunspots and How to Observe Them Safely, Scientific American, 262, 6, 130-133, June 1990,

F. M. Mims III, How to Monitor Ultraviolet Radiation from the Sun, Scientific American, 263, 2, 106-109, August 1990.

F. M. Mims III, A Remote-Control Camera that Catches the Wind and Captures the Landscape, Scientific American, 263, 2, 126-129, October 1990.

F. M. Mims III, Sun Photometer with Light-Emitting Diodes as Spectrally Selective Detectors, Applied Optics, 31, 33, 6965-6967, 1992.

F. M. Mims III, and E. R. Mims Fluctuations in Column Ozone During the Total Solar Eclipse of July 11, 1991, Geophysical Research Letters, 20, 5, 367-370, 1993. (Also presented as a poster paper at the Quadrennial Ozone Symposium, University of Virginia, June 1992.)

F. M. Mims III, Satellite Monitoring Error, Nature, 361, 505, 1993.

F. M. Mims III, Project Halo: The Annular Solar Eclipse of 1994, EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 74, 18, 1, 1993.

F. M. Mims III, Project Halo: Measuring the 1994 Annular Solar Eclipse, Sky & Telescope, 102-104, January 1994.

F. M. Mims III, Exceptionally Low Ozone and High Solar UV Radiation at Texas, Proceedings of the Second Pan Pacific Cooperative Symposium on Impact of Increased UV-B Exposure on Human Health and Ecosystem, Kitakyushu, Japan, October 1993. (Invited paper.) (Also presented in part in both oral and poster papers at the Gordon Conference on the Impact of Volcanism on Global Climate, New England College, New Hampshire, 1993.)

F. M. Mims III, Measuring the Radiation at the Top of the Earth's Atmosphere, Science Probe 1, 2, 93-100, April 1991.

F. M. Mims III, Tracking the Ozone Layer, Science Probe 2, 4, 32-41, November 1992.

F. M. Mims III, How to Measure the Ozone Layer, Science Probe 2, 4, 45-51, November 1992.

F. M. Mims III, Surveying Your Environment, Science Probe 2, 4, 3, November 1992.

F. M. Mims III, In Defense of Radioactive Journals, Nature 359, 784, 1992.

F. M. Mims III, The Sun Photometer Atmospheric Network (SPAN): Observations of Record Low Ozone and Other Results of a 4-Year Pilot Study, Proceedings of the UV Index Meeting, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, November 1993. (Invited paper.)

F. M. Mims III, and John E. Frederick, Cumulus Clouds and UV-B, Nature 371, 291, 1994.

F. M. Mims III, Project Halo Update, Sky & Telescope, December 1994.

F. M. Mims III, Beware the glare of black light, New Scientist, 144, 1957/1958, 71-72, 1994.

F. M. Mims III, , J. Ladd and R. Blaha, Increased Solar Ultraviolet-B Associated with Record Low Ozone Over Texas, Geophysical Research Letters 22, 227-230, 1995.

F. M. Mims III, , William F. Barnard, Arthur C. Neuendorffer and Gordon J. Labow, Unusually Low Ozone Detected Over South-Central U.S. EOS 76, 113-115 (1995).

F. M. Mims III, Aerosol Optical Depth, Ultraviolet-B and Total Sky Irradiance during SCAR-B (Brazil), final report for NASA purchase order No. S-59036-Z, 1995.

F. M. Mims III, Smoke and Rainforests, Science 270, 5243, 1995.

F. M. Mims III, UV Radiation and Field Experiments, BioScience 46, 564-565, 1996.

F. M. Mims III, Biological Effects of Diminished UV and Visible Sunlight Caused by Severe Air Pollution, Proceedings of the International Radiation Symposium, Session 8, Fairbanks, Alaska, 19-24 August 1996.

F. M. Mims III, Significant Reduction in UV-B Caused by Smoke from Biomass Burning in Brazil, Photochemistry and Photobiology, 64, 123-125, 1996.

F. M. Mims III, The Science that Happens through Partnerships, Proceedings of the Student-Scientist Partnership Conference, Washington, DC, 23-25 October, 1996.

F. M. Mims III, Aerosol Optical Thickness, Total Ozone, UV-B, Diffuse/Total Solar Irradiance and Sky Polarization Through Forest Fire Smoke and Stratospheric Aerosols During TOMS Overpasses, final report for NASA purchase order No. S-78417-Z, 1996.

F. M. Mims III, Aerosol Optical Thickness, Total Ozone, UV-B, Diffuse/Total Solar Irradiance and Sky Polarization Through Forest Fire Smoke and Stratospheric Aerosols During TOMS Overpasses, final report for NASA purchase order S-78417-Z, 1996.

F. M. Mims III, Hands-On Activities: The Better Approach to Teaching Biology, Journal of College Science Teaching 26, 377, 1997 (letter).

F. M. Mims III, and D. J. Travis, Aircraft Contrails Reduce Solar Irradiance, EOS 78, 448-449, 1997.

F. M. Mims III, , B. N. Holben, T. F. Eck, B. C. Montgomery and W. B. Grant, Smoky Skies, Mosquitoes, and Disease, Science 276, 1774-1775, 1997 (letter).

F. M. Mims III, and Bradley S. White, Scientific Studies During the 1997 Burning Season at Alta Floresta, Brazil, final report for NASA purchase order S-97728-Z, 1997.

F. M. Mims III, Health effects of tropical smoke, Nature 390, 222-223, 1997 (letter).

F. M. Mims III, Solar corona caused by juniper pollen in Texas, Applied Optics 37, 1486-1488, 20 March 1998.

F. M. Mims III, Shared Air, (an on-line book published by the Concord Consortium on the World Wide Web, 1998).

F. M. Mims III, Ups and Downs of UV-B, BioScience 48, 646-648, August 1998 (invited book review).

F. M. Mims III, An Inexpensive and Accurate Student Sun Photometer with Light-Emitting Diodes as Spectrally Selective Detectors, Proceedings of the Third Annual GLOBE Conference, 232-239, August 1998.

F. M. Mims III, and David R. Brooks, Sampling strategies for the GLOBE Sun photometer network, Proceedings of the Fourth Annual GLOBE Conference, University of New Hampshire, July 1999 (www.globe.gov).

F. M. Mims III, Amateur Science--Strong Tradition, Bright Future, Science 284, 55-56, 1999 (invited essay).

Forrest M. Mims III, An International Haze-Monitoring Network for Students, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80, 1421-1431, 1999 (cover article).

Forrest M. Mims III, Solar Radiometer with Light-Emitting Diodes as Spectrally-Selective Detectors, Optics and Photonics News 11, 3-4, 2000.

David R. Brooks and Forrest M. Mims III, Development of an inexpensive handheld LED-based Sun photometer for the GLOBE program, J. Geophysical Research 106, 4733-4740, 2001.

Marian Morys, Forrest M. Mims III, Scott Hagerup, Stanley Anderson, Aaron Baker, Jesse Kia and Travis Walkup, Design, calibration and performance of MICROTOPS II handheld ozone monitor and Sun photometer, J. of Geophysical Research 106, 14,573-14,582, 2001.

Forrest M. Mims III, Solar UV-B measured at the surface and inferred by satellite at a rural Texas site, 1994-2001, Proc. SPIE, Ultraviolet Ground- and Space-based Measurements, Models and Effects 4482, 177-186, 2001.

Forrest M. Mims III, Spectral Absorption and Response: Does the association of spectral absorption bands in sunlight with the spectral response of photoreceptors in plants imply coincidence, adaptation or design?, Progress in Complexity, Information and Design, 1, Winter 2002.

Forrest M. Mims III, An inexpensive and stable LED Sun photometer for measuring the water vapor column over South Texas from 1990 to 2001, Geophysical Research Letters 29, 20-1 to 20-4, 2002.

Forrest M. Mims III and David Brooks, Validation of remote-sensing satellites using inexpensive, ground-based instruments (Proceedings of the GLOBE Annual Meeting, July 2002).

Forrest M. Mims III, Five years of photosynthetic radiation measurements using a new kind of LED sensor, Photochemistry and Photobiology 77, [January] 2003.

Forrest M. Mims III, Solar aureoles caused by dust, smoke and haze, Applied Optics, [February] 2003.

Forrest M. Mims III, Significant changes in the ratio of pigmented to non-pigmented airborne bacteria associated with suppressed UV-B during smoke events in Brazil (in preparation; to be submitted to Photochemistry and Photobiology).