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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