Tom Cwik has worked in space exploration for over three decades at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena CA. He has provided strategic leadership in advanced technology and has been the focal point for technology interactions with NASA, large and small companies, and universities. His responsibilities included guiding the infusion of new technology into the Laboratory's mission portfolio and partnering with a number of creative industries.
He has worked in a range of areas, developing mission systems and components for flight and ground projects, leading formulation of the NASA Aquarius Earth observing mission and originating autonomous rovers for the moon. He works with start-up companies and accelerators in the new-space sector and with the venture capital community. Tom's technical interests include computational electromagnetics using high-performance parallel architectures, and the system design of mobile bots that will one day explore ocean worlds such as Europa and Enceladus.
Tom received his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has been a co-founder of a start-up company, consults, and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Washington where he teaches a class on the Technological Frontier. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, was named a distinguished alum at the University of Illinois, ECE Department, and is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA.