About the Speaker – Michael F. Lembeck, Ph.D.

Michael F. Lembeck (B.S. ’80, M.S. ’81, Ph.D., ’91 UIUC) is the Vice President of Operations and FDOC Program Manager for Cimarron in Houston, TX. He is also a Senior Project Integration Engineer for Boeing’s CST-100 Commercial Crew Vehicle. Previously, Dr. Lembeck served as Northrop Grumman’s Houston Operations Director, as the Requirements Division Director for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters (and participated in the development of the nation’s Vision for Space Exploration), and as the Vice President for Remote Sensing Programs at the Orbital Sciences Corporation. Responsible for the remote sensing business area, Dr. Lembeck oversaw the design, development, and production of two state-of-the-art spacecraft, OrbView-3 and OrbView-4/Warfighter-1, their cameras, and the complementary ground segment.

Dr. Lembeck was also the Chief Engineer for a primary free-flying space shuttle payload, Wakeshield Facility-3, at Houston’s Space Industries, Inc., where he also served as the Manager of Engineering. Dr. Lembeck designed, coded, and integrated the first fuzzy logic application to fly in space aboard almost every space shuttle flight since STS-49 inside a refrigerator/incubator module used for protein crystal growth studies. Prior to completing his Ph.D., he worked at TRW in the Systems Effectiveness Section and at the Jet Propulsion Lab in the Attitude Control Integration and Test Group, both in southern California.

Dr, Lembeck is a member of the ESA/NASA GSFC Solar Orbiter Instrument Standing Review Board, the Chair of the JAXA/NASA GSFC Astro-H Standing Review Board and the Chair of the NASA ARC ISS Program Utilization Office Rodent Facility External Review Board. Dr. Lembeck is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA and a member of the University of Illinois Aerospace Department’s Alumni Advisory Board.