Thomas Cwik is Chief Technologist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In this role, he provides strategic leadership for research in advanced technology and serves as the focal point for technology interactions with NASA, companies, universities, and the external research community. This includes being responsible for the management and development of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate work at JPL and directing internal investments across the Lab. He is responsible for guiding the infusion of new technology into the Laboratory mission portfolio.

Thomas has been at JPL for over 30 years working as Associate Chief Technologist, managing the Space Technology Office, working in technology development in a number of areas, developing flight systems for a number of missions, and leading formulation of the NASA Aquarius mission. He works with start-up companies and accelerators in the new-space sector. Thomas’ technical interests include areas of computational electromagnetics using high-performance parallel architectures and the system design of mobile bots that will one day explore ocean worlds.

Thomas 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. He was named a distinguished alum at the University of Illinois, ECE Department, and is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA and a Fellow of the IEEE.