MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Contact: John G. Watson
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 19, 1998
WILSON NAMED HEAD OF MICROELECTRONICS CENTER
Dr. Barbara Wilson has been named program manager for the
Center for Space Microelectronics Technology at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. She will also serve as
JPL's chief technologist.
The Center for Space Microelectronics Technology was founded
in 1987 to develop high-risk, high-payoff concepts and devices to
enable future space missions and to enhance current and planned
missions. The center conducts research and development in such
fields as solid-state devices, photonics, custom micro-circuits
and advanced computing.
Wilson succeeds Dr. Carl Kukkonen, who left JPL last fall to
head a new company, ViaSpace Technologies LLC of Pasadena, CA.
As JPL's chief technologist, Wilson's office will provide
strategic leadership and integration for all aspects of
technology development throughout the Laboratory. Both positions
are effective February 11.
A physicist with a doctorate from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and a bachelor's degree from Mount Holyoke
College in Massachusetts, Wilson joined JPL in 1988 as technical
group supervisor of the Microdevices Section. Shortly thereafter
she was named manager of the Microdevices Laboratory, a facility
operating under the umbrella of the Center for Space
Microelectronics Technology.
She most recently served as program manager for JPL's Earth
Science Program Office and technologist for NASA's New Millennium
Program, which sponsors spacecraft missions designed to test new
technologies so that they may be confidently used on science
missions of the future. She is the recipient of the NASA Special
Achievement Medal for her contributions to the New Millennium
Program.
Before joining JPL, she served as supervisor of the
Optoelectronic Materials Research Group at AT&T Bell Labs, where
she was awarded the company's exceptional contribution award for
her work in semiconductor devices.
A fellow of the American Physical Society and a senior
member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE), Wilson has served as a member of the U.S. Air Force
Scientific Advisory Board and has chaired NASA workshops on
sensor technologies, applications of microtechnologies to space
systems, and technology for miniature spacecraft.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, CA.
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