Dr. Stephen Townes
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Dr. Stephen Townes is the Chief Technologist of the Interplanetary Network Directorate and
Manager of the Technology, Standards and Spectrum Program Office, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). During his career at JPL
he has been the Deputy Manager of the Systems Concepts, Integration and Planning Office, Deputy Project Manager of the Mars Laser
Communication Demonstration, Manager of the Communications Systems and Research Section, and an analyst for various projects related
to the Deep Space Network. He is a Principal Engineer.
He has also worked at The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA, in adaptive signal processing for communications
and radar and at Stanford Telecommunications, Inc., Mountain View, CA, as an analyst for GPS and digital communications systems.
He has a PhD, MS and BE in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University, Stanford University and Vanderbilt University respectively.