Carey M. Rappaport joined the faculty at Northeastern University in 1987 and became a professor of electrical and computer engineering in July 2000. He received the title of distinguished professor for the College of Engineering in 2011.

Previously, Rappaport was the principal investigator of an Army Research Office-sponsored Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) on humanitarian demining and a co-principal investigator and associate director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored Engineering Research Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS). Rappaport was also a co-principal investigator and deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security-sponsored Awareness and Localization of Explosive Related Threats (ALERT) Center of Excellence.

Rappaport has authored over 425 technical journal and conference papers in microwave antenna design, bioelectronics, and electromagnetic wave propagation and scattering computation. He has received two reflector antenna patents, two biomedical device patents, and three subsurface sensing device patents.  He was awarded the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Antenna and Propagation Society’s H.A. Wheeler Award for Best Applications paper as a student in 1986.

Rappaport has received five degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology including, a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and one in Engineering. He also received a Master of Science, a Degree of Electrical Engineer, and a doctorate in electrical engineering. He is a member of Sigma Xi and Eta Kappa Nu professional honorary societies.