Edward J. Rothwell received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Michigan Technological University, Houghton, in 1979, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering and the degree of electrical engineer from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1980 and 1982, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, in 1985, where he held the Dean's Distinguished Fellowship.

He worked for Raytheon Co., Microwave and Power Tube Division, Waltham, MA, from 1979-1982 on low power traveling wave tubes, and for MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA, in 1985. He has been at Michigan State University from 1985-1990 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering, from 1990-1998 as an associate professor, and from 1998 as professor. He received the John D. Withrow award for teaching excellence from the College of Engineering at Michigan State University in 1991, 1996, 2006, and 2012, and the Withrow Distinguished Scholar Award in 2007. He also received the MSU Alumni Club of Mid Michigan Quality in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2003, and the MSU Distinguished Faculty Award in 2013. He was a joint recipient of the Best Technical Paper Award at the 2003 Antenna Measurement Techniques Association Symposium, and in 2005 he received the Southeast Michigan IEEE Section Award for Most Outstanding Professional.

Dr. Rothwell is a Fellow of the IEEE, and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi, and Commission B of URSI. He is co-author of the book Electromagnetics (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2001; 2nd edition 2008) and of the book Engineering Writing by Design (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2014).