Thomas U. Kampe: The 2024 SPIE A. E. Conrady Award in Optical Engineering
Thomas U. Kampe, an Optical Engineering Technical Fellow at Ball Aerospace, is an industry-recognized leader in optical engineering, design, and development. Over his 40-year career, Kampe has designed and built state-of-the-art optical systems for many applications, with a particular emphasis on the development of electro-optic payloads for Earth remote sensing. He has supported some of the most critical Earth-monitoring instruments, including the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), the Landsat Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2), and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder (CALIPSO). He was also responsible for the MethaneSAT imaging spectrometer that will monitor global methane emissions. In addition, Kampe is the lead for Camera Science for NASA’s Libera program. His technical breadth extends well beyond that of a typical optical engineer and is exemplified by his leadership on technology-development programs funded by the NASA Earth Science and Technology Office including the Spaceborne Infrared Atmospheric Sounder for Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (SIRAS-G), the Compact Hyperspectral Prism Spectrometer, and the CubeSat Infrared Atmospheric Sounder. He has held leadership positions within Ball Aerospace’s optical-engineering organization as well as managing the Remote Sensing Group at the National Science Foundation’s National Ecological Observatory Network. He is also known for his mentorship of junior engineers and interns, many of whom now hold senior engineering positions at Ball.
Kampe, an SPIE Fellow, has served as an associate editor for the Journal of Applied Remote Sensing since 2009 and as a reviewer for Optical Engineering. Other Society roles have included being a course instructor for Optical Design Fundamentals for Infrared Systems. He’s also been a conference co-chair for “Systems Oriented Optical Design,” and “Infrared Optical Design;” a conference program committee member and session chair for “Recent Advances in Optical Engineering and Topical Design” and “Lens and Optical System Design and Engineering;” and a conference committee member for “Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability.”
“I have had the pleasure of working with Dr. Kampe on many occasions,” notes SPIE Past President Jim Oschmann. “The first was in 1988-89 where I worked with him to complete a small laser diode collimator assembly for a NASA application. This small project resulted in both of our first publications, as co-authors, very early in our careers. Later, our paths happily crossed again when I joined Ball Aerospace in 2004. For the next 14 years, I was able to witness and interact with Thomas, especially during my last five years as vice-president and general manager of Civil Space at Ball. In working on Earth-science remote-sensing projects, he is always a supportive leader and team player who is well respected by his colleagues as well as customers: NASA, NOAA, NSF, etc. He remains a sought-after team member, leader, mentor, and problem-solver; beyond his impressive career of accomplishments in optical and optical-system engineering, Dr. Kampe has a long history of wider community support. I consider him an exemplary recipient of the A.E. Conrady Award in Optical Engineering, a perfectly matched recognition.”
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Read more about Thomas U. Kampe and the SPIE A. E. Conrady Award in Optical Engineering.
