Associate Center Director for Research and Technology, NASA Ames Research Center- Silicon Valley, Ca
B.S. ASE 1986, Pennsylvania State University
M.S. ASE 1988, The University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D. ASE 1991, The University of Texas at Austin
M.S. Management 2002 and Sloan Fellow, Stanford University Graduate School of Business
David Korsmeyer is the current acting Associate Center Director at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley where he runs all center operations. His formal role is as the Associate Center Director for Research and Technology at NASA Ames. He is one of four senior leaders guiding Ames and is responsible for the overall scope and direction of the center’s research, technology portfolio and engineering developments, which support NASA’s missions in aeronautics, science, exploration and technology. He also manages the NASA Virtual Institutes hosted at Ames, the Ames’ Internal Research and Development projects and the Center’s external research collaborations.
Korsmeyer earned his B.S. in aerospace engineering from the Pennsylvania State University and both his M.S. and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. Additionally, he is a Sloan Fellow with an M.S. in management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
Korsmeyer has worked at NASA Ames since 1991. He formerly served as Ames’ Director of Engineering for six years, leading a broad range of spacecraft projects, proposals and engineering support of technology, wind tunnels and science experiments. Notable space mission successes include: NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), the Network & Operation Demonstration Satellite (NODeS), creating exploration small spacecraft such as Biosentinel, and flying numerous space biology experiments on International Space Station (ISS), and flying 30 cubesats. Prior to that role, Korsmeyer led the Ames’ Intelligent Systems Division for 10 years conducting world-class research, development and implementation of intelligent, reliable software and systems to enabled and enhanced NASA missions, including air traffic management, ISS, LCROSS and the Mars Exploration Rovers. He also led several aeronautics research and development projects, supporting advanced collaborative systems for wind tunnels experiments and numerical and simulation tests.
Korsmeyer was instrumental in the formation and management of many NASA technology programs and projects. He has regularly served on agency-level technology and engineering teams such as the 2007 Constellation program’s Near-Earth Objects mission study, the 2009 Presidential Review of Human Spaceflight, the 2017 Agency's Technical Capabilities Assessment, the 2019 Lunar Lander Assessment and the 2020 Artemis Program Status Assessment. He has been involved in formulating proposals for many new science mission concepts and involved in developing innovative new technologies. He has more than 50 publications in space systems and computer science.
Korsmeyer has served as the chair of the UT Austin ASE/EM External Advisory Committee, is an active member of the Space Exploration Technical Committee of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), is a lifetime member of both the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and belongs to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) society. His honors include a NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, over 18 NASA Group and Individual Achievement Awards and the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive.
Korsmeyer enjoys reading, cooking, gardening and travel. He lives in San Mateo, CA with his wife Katy and has two adult daughters, Alysia and Julie.
