Dr.Firouz Naderi:

NASA, JPL, Director, Solar System Exploration Programs and Mars Exploration Program Manager

Dr.Firouz Naderi

Dr. Naderi is the head of Mars Exploration Program at JPL. The program consists of a chain of scientifically and technologically interrelated projects with one or more spacecraft launched to Mars every 26 months. In summer of 2000 he helped to architect this program and has responsibility for its end-to-end implementation. During his tenure three successful missions have orbited or landed on Mars. Dr. Naderi is also the Director for the Solar System Exploration Programs and chairs JPL’s Strategic Management Council.

Previously he spent four years as the program manager of the Origins Program—NASA’s ambitious technology-rich plan to search for evidence of life outside the Solar System.

Dr. Naderi’s formal education is in electrical engineering; he received his Ph.D. from University of Southern California (USC) writing his dissertation in the area of digital image processing.

He joined JPL in September of 1979. His early work at JPL was on system design of large satellite-based systems for nationwide cellular phone coverage. Dr. Naderi went to NASA Headquarters for two years in the mid-80s to serve as the program manager for the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) the front-runner of today’s multi-beam space-switching commercial satellites. Upon his return to JPL he became the project manager for the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) Project aimed at space-based measurement of winds over the global oceans with application to weather forecasting. He was a cofounder of a startup company in the mid-‘80s and consultant to other startup companies in the same period

His 25 years at JPL spans systems engineering, technology development, program and project management as applied to satellite communications systems, Earth remote sensing observatories, astrophiscical observatories and planetary systems. He is the recipient of NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal.