Derek Boyd received his doctorate from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1973. He joined the University of Maryland in 1973.

Prof. Boyd's research program involves developing diagnostics for the electrons in high temperature plasmas, particularly those plasmas generated in large tokamaks at major sites around the country. These diagnostics have been based on the electron cyclotron emission from absorption on the magnetically confined electrons. The instrumentation has been adapted from the field of far infrared spectroscopy and conventional microwave circuitry. Pushing the frontiers of this research has led to studies as wide-ranging as the properties of materials at far infrared wavelengths, the search for new detectors, and the subtleties of the generation and propagation of the electron cyclotron waves in inhomogeneous magneto-plasmas.