Paolo Focardi

Paolo Focardi is currently a group lead for technology development at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in computer science and telecommunication engineering from the University of Florence, Italy, in 2002. During his Ph.D. studies, he worked for the Italian Space Agency ASI and with NASA and the Germany Aerospace Center DLR on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. In 2001, Dr. Focardi worked at JPL on the development of an accurate and comprehensive electromagnetic model of terahertz detectors between 600 GHz and 2.5 THz. In 2002, after defending his Ph.D., he joined the staff of JPL again as a postdoc and then became staff engineer in 2004. Between 2004 and 2009, he worked on remote sensing of human vital signs, which led to the creation of two startup companies and to the filing of several U.S. patents. In 2008, he briefly supported the Juno mission, currently flying around Jupiter, and then joined the team developing the instrument antenna for the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, including the first spinning deployable mesh reflector antenna ever flown by JPL. Dr. Focardi was the first to model the entire SMAP observatory and to get very accurate predictions of the radiation patterns, which were never measured on the ground. He was also responsible for the design and delivery of the compact ocean-wind vector radiometer instrument antenna, a flight project in collaboration between JPL and the U.S. Air Force to measure wind speed over the ocean, which is currently flying on the International Space Station.. Starting in 2013, he led the development of the feed assembly for the NASA-Indian Space Research Organisation Synthetic Aperture Radar joint mission, which is currently in its final phases of integration and testing before launch, expected in early 2025. Dr. Focardi is currently working on the Investigation of Convective Updrafts mission, which is an Earth science mission aimed at measuring how water vapor and droplets move inside tropical storms with three satellites flying in close formation in low Earth orbit while equipped with Ka Band radars and deployable mesh reflectors. His work is focused on analytical and numerical methods in electromagnetism for the analysis and design of radio frequency circuits and antennas. He has authored and co-authored over 70 journal and conference publications, including two book chapters about reflector antennas. He is also the chair of the Coastal Los Angeles Section of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Antennas and Propagation Society.