Dr. Erik K. Antonsson, Chief Technologist of JPL

Dr. Erik K. Antonsson became Chief Technologist of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in September 2002.

Dr. Antonsson has been a California Institute of Technology professor and researcher since 1984. He organized the Engineering Design Research Laboratory at Caltech and has made major research contributions in the area of formal methods for engineering design. He is perhaps best known on campus for his unique course, the ME72 Engineering Design Laboratory, where students get a real-world experience in the engineering design of new devices.

He earned a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering with distinction from Cornell University in 1976, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 under the supervision of Prof. Robert W. Mann.

In 1983 he joined the Mechanical Engineering faculty at the University of Utah, as an Assistant Professor.

He was an NSF Presidential Young Investigator (1986-1992), and won the 1995 Richard P. Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and is a co-winner of the 2001 TRW Distinguished Patent Award.

Dr. Antonsson is a Fellow of the ASME, and a member of the IEEE, SME, ACM, ASEE, IFSA, and NAFIPS.

His research accomplishments include the development of formal methods for engineering decisions and trade-offs and for representing and manipulating imprecision in engineering design, automated methods for synthesis of engineering designs, structured design synthesis of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), and the invention and development of digital micropropulsion microthrusters.

Dr. Antonsson is currently on the editorial board of the International Journals: Research in Engineering Design, and Fuzzy Sets and Systems, and from 1989 to 1993 served as an Associate Technical Editor of the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, (formerly the Journal of Mechanisms, Transmissions and Automation in Design), with responsibility for the Design Research and the Design Theory and Methodology area.

He has been Executive Officer (Chair) of Mechanical Engineering since 1998. He serves as a member of the Faculty Board of the California Institute of Technology (2001-), and as a member of the Engineering and Applied Science Division Steering Committee (DSC, 2001-2002) and Division Advisory Group (DAG, 2000-2002), and served as Director of the Engineering Computing Facility (ECF) at Caltech (1995-2002), and as a member of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (2001-2002). He was a member of the Caltech Faculty Committee on Patents and Relations with Industry (1992-1999), and since 1990 has been a member of the WestStart - CALSTART Technical Advisory Committee.

He has published over 100 scholarly papers in the engineering design research literature, has edited two books, and holds five U.S. Patents. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in California, and serves as an engineering design consultant to industry, research laboratories (including the 10 meter W. M. Keck Telescope), and to the Intellectual Property bar.

Antonsson resides in Pasadena with his wife and their three children.