Bio of M. David Kankam, Ph.D.
Dr. Kankam serves as the University Affairs Officer (UAO) of NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) with responsibility for GRC research collaboration with academia, to help advance Center programs and NASA mission. He initiated the NASA Space Academy and developed the Aeronautics Academy(since then re-named NASA Multidisciplinary Aeronautics Research Team Initiative (MARTI)) at Glenn in 2005 and 2011, respectively, to help train potential future leaders of US Aero-Space organizations and industry. He has since implemented both summer programs at GRC. MARTI which is offered at all four NASA Aeronautics Centers, including GRC. Dr. Kankam has directed the Academies and MARTI at GRC, since their inception. Prior to his UAO position, he was a Senior Research Engineer for identifying, planning, managing and performing research on development of power and power electronics-based systems for aerospace and terrestrial applications. Subsequently, he was appointed the Acting Chief of the ‘Electro-Mechanical Systems Branch’. He has chaired GRC Fellowship Selection Committee for NASA Higher Education opportunities since 2003. He was a Visiting Professor in Electrical Engineering Department at Howard University in Washington, D.C. during 1997-’98 academic year, and Visiting Research Engineer at the Royal Military College of Science in Shrivenham, England, while on a NASA Administrator’s Fellowship. Before joining NASA GRC, he was a Research Officer in the R/D Division-Ontario Ministry of Transportation & Communications, Toronto/Canada, an Engineer at Ontario Hydro in Toronto and, following that, an Application Engineer at General Electric (GE) Company in Schenectady, NY.
He serves on the Electrical Engineering (EE) Department’s Industry Advisory Committee for Cleveland State University where he teaches “Electromechanical Energy Conversion. He has served onOhio Miami University’s Research Advisory Committee. From 2007 to 2009, he was a member of Puerto Rico Space Grant Consortium Advisory Board. He was elected to IEEE Fellow grade, effective Jan. 1, 2017. As Chair of the Manufacturing Systems Development and Applications Department(MSDAD) from 1/1/2010 to 12/31/2011, he was IAS Executive Board member. Subsequently, he served for two years as a Board Member-at-Large. From 2001 through 2006, he progressively served as the Secretary, Vice-Chair and Chair of the IAS’s Industrial Automation and Control Committee (IACC). He has authored/co-authored over fifty technical reports and project plans, and more than sixty refereed publications on the dynamics and control of power and power electronics-based systems, in IEEE and its affiliatedorganizations’ Conferences, Journals and Transactions.
He earned his Diploma in Business Administration (Management Studies), and Ph.D., M.A.Sc. and B.A.Sc. (Applied Science & Engineering) degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Kankam is a recipient of numerous G.E. Company (Schenectady, NY) and NASA GRC technical, Management and outreach Awards and recognitions, among them technical publication Awards, “NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal” (2003), GRC Minority Enterprise Development “Technical Person of the Year Award” (2002 and 2003), and NASA’s “Exceptional Achievement Medal” (2011) for “exceptional achievement in themanagement of NASA Glenn Research Center’s higher educational programs, resulting in significant contributions to Agency STEM objectives”.
MDK / Jan. 27, 2017