Keynote Speaker: Dr. Firouz Naderi
Associate Director
Project Formulation and Strategy

Keynote Title: "Igniting Innovation Through Grand Challenges"

Great leaps in innovation often spring from societal grand challenges. From the transcontinental railroad to the moon landing, these undertakings revolutionize our lives. During his Keynote at Research Expo 2009, Dr. Firouz Naderi, Associate Director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will share how NASA continues to tackle the grand challenges of space through the development of the International Space Station, the Mars Science Laboratory, and the Constellation systems for human exploration beyond Earth orbit.

As the Associate Director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. Firouz Naderi is responsible for project formulation and strategy. Before his current assignment, he was the head of the Mars Exploration Program, having been named to that position in 2000 after the program had suffered two consecutive failures. Naderi helped revamp that program with a spacecraft launch to Mars every two years, including the successful launch of Mars Odyssey, landing of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, and the development of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Before Mars, he managed the Origins Program, NASA's ambitious, technology-rich plan to search for Earth-like planets in other planetary systems.

Naderi received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in electrical engineering and joined JPL in 1979. His career at JPL has spanned system engineering, technology development, and program and project management for satellite communications systems, Earth remote sensing observatories, astrophysical observatories and planetary systems. His early work at JPL was on system design of large satellite-based systems for nationwide cellular phone coverage.

Naderi is an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the recipient of a number of awards, including NASA's Outstanding Leadership Medal, Space Technology Hall of Fame Medal and NASA's highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal.

He is a 2005 recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for outstanding contributions that have enriched American society and exemplify its cultural diversity. Past winners of this award have included President Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Bob Hope and other notables.