Director:
Dr. Steven C. Suddarth is the Director of the Configurable Space Microsystems Innovations and Applications Center (COSMIAC). He serves as Research Faculty at the University of New Mexico. He is responsible for leading the COSMIAC collaboration between Government, Industry, and Academia to ensure design success and deployment of programmable logic in space, military and civil applications as well as to develop the long-term plans for the Center.

A retired Air Force Colonel with 24 years of service, Dr. Suddarth served his last military assignment as the liaison from U.S. Strategic Command to the National Laboratories. Based in Los Alamos, NM, Col. Suddarth initiated and oversaw a development team of 60 people spanning four sites to develop key technologies for the war fighter. Dr. Suddarth has overseen several substantial computer engineering/embedded systems projects. These include the development of a first-ever 3-dimensional mixed analog/digital image processor which advanced the State-of-the-Art by 3 orders of magnitude. Dr. Suddarth also built and tested several airborne optical sensing systems, unmanned aerial robotics systems, and software systems for large military space programs.

Dr. Suddarth has served in key leadership capacities in the Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Materiel Command, and the Air War College. In these positions, he organized, led, and contributed to several efforts within the Air Force to rejuvenate interest and investment in technology and assembled plans to expand graduate education by a factor of 5, which substantially increased enrollment at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). Further efforts included developing course materials, widely used today, for the indoctrination and instruction of incoming Air Force scientists and engineers, while contributing to current war efforts and demonstrating a key data-sharing capability among fighter aircraft.

Dr. Suddarth is a 1982 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy (B.S. in Electrical Engineering), and he holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington. Dr. Suddarth is also a graduate of the Brazilian Air Command and Staff College, U.S. Joint Forces Staff College, and the U.S. Air War College. He has authored over 20 papers.

Deputy Director:
Mr. Craig J. Kief serves as Deputy Director of COSMIAC. Mr. Kief serves as the lead Program Manager for the Air Force Research Laboratory's Cubeflow training program and is a Research Scholar on the faculty at the University of New Mexico. In this capacity, he is responsible for overseeing curriculum and training development, teaching short courses, and coordinating the scheduling and registration of COSMIAC courses.

Mr. Kief has over 32 years experience in computer and satellite communications, including voice and data networks, testing, troubleshooting, debugging, system administration, embedded software, software/hardware integration, and network monitoring. Mr. Kief has extensive background in programmable logic involving FPGA and CPLD technologies. He is currently developing a 3U CubeSat for an optics mission that will perform two meter resolution imaging from low earth orbit. Mr. Kief retired from the Air Force in 1998 following 20 years of military service. His final military assignment was at the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) at Kirtland Air Force Base.

Mr. Kief has a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of New Mexico. He has published and taught in the areas of digital and programmable logic and in verification and validation of systems.

Chief Research Officer:
Prof. Christos Christodoulou is Chief Research Officer for COSMIAC and Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Albuquerque. His research interests are in the areas of modeling of electromagnetic systems, FPGA reconfigurable systems, and smart RF/photonics.

Dr. Christodoulou is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters and the International Journal of RF and Microwave Computer-aided Engineering. He served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation for six years; as a guest editor for a special issue on "Applications of Neural Networks in Electromagnetics" in the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES) journal; and as the Co-Editor of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Special Issue on "Synthesis and Optimization Techniques in Electromagnetics and Antenna System Design" (March 2007). He was appointed as an IEEE AP-S Distinguished Lecturer (2007-2009) and elected as the President for the Albuquerque IEEE Section. Dr. Christodoulou has published over 300 papers in journals and conferences, has been awarded three patents, and has authored/co-authored eleven book chapters and four books.

Dr. Christodoulou received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1985. He served as a faculty member in the University of Central Florida, Orlando, from 1985 to 1998. In 1999, he joined the faculty of UNM's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, where he served as the Chair of the Department through 2005. Dr. Christodoulou is an IEEE Fellow and a member of Commission B of USNC/URSI, Eta Kappa Nu, and the Electromagnetics Academy. He served as the general Chair of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society/URSI 1999 Symposium; as the co-chair of the IEEE 2000 Symposium on Antennas and Propagation for Wireless Communications; and the co-technical chair for the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society/URSI 2006 Symposium.

Business Development Officer:
Scott Tyson is the Business Development Officer for COSMIAC and co-founder of SES Consultants, Inc. which provides space technology portfolio consulting and radiation test and mitigation services to space system developers.

Mr. Tyson has developed space and military electronics and computing technology for the past 29 years at organizations including Sandia National Laboratories, Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, Mission Research Corporation, IBM's VLSI Laboratory, and Westinghouse's Advanced Technology Laboratory. Prior to starting SES Consultants and establishing COSMIAC, Mr. Tyson oversaw radiation hardened electronics research and development activities at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), serving as Chief Technology Officer and Technical Advisor for the Space Electronics and Protection Branch (VSSE) of the Space Vehicles Directorate (RV). He also served as the architect of the DoD's efforts to establish the effectiveness of radiation-hardening-by-design (RHBD) methods.

Mr. Tyson received his Bachelor of Engineering Sciences (BES) degree from the Johns Hopkins University in 1981. Mr. Tyson holds 15 U.S patents, has published and presented extensively on microelectronics and space technology, and has organized numerous conferences and workshops on space and military electronics and avionics.