The Northrop Grumman Entrepreneurship Course for Scientists and Engineers

Event V

Featuring Peter Staudhammer
Director of the Alfred Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering
Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering at USC

Location: McDonnell Douglas Engineering Auditorium

About the Speaker:
Dr. Staudhammer is also an independent consultant in aerospace, defense systems and automotive engineering with Northrop Grumman, General Motors, Quintell Corporation, BioAlert, and the U.S. DoE as his major clients.

In 2002 he retired as Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of TRW, Inc. where he was responsible for the overall health and direction of TRW's technical affairs. He oversaw a global force of 17,000 engineers and scientists in space, defense, electronics, information systems and automotive engineering.

He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from UCLA in 1955, 1956, and 1957, respectively. For the next two years, he worked in propulsion research at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 1959 he joined TRW Inc., where he held several technical and management positions over the next 42 years.

He was Chief Engineer for the development of the Apollo Lunar Descent Engine that soft-landed the U.S. astronauts and returned Apollo 13; he led the development of a series of space instruments, including the Viking Biology Instrument; he was Director of TRW's Central Research Laboratories, directing a broad range of research in space science, solid state devices, plasma physics, optics and lasers; and he directed programs in thermonuclear fusion, isotope separation, fossil fuel combustion and energy storage.

In 1986 he was named Vice President and General Manager of TRW's Defense Project Division, where he managed classified national programs with space and ground segments. From 1993 until his retirement, he served as TRW's Chief Technical Officer.

Dr. Staudhammer has served on numerous NRC committees; has served on several Engineering Review Committees, including UCLA, UC Riverside, USC, UofM and CWRU. He is also a member of the General Motors Corporate Science Advisory Committee. He was named Alumnus of the Year (1992) by the UCLA School of Engineering and has received numerous awards from NASA, including the Distinguished Public Service Medal in 2002. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.