Giuseppe Cataldo has served as Assistant Chief for Technology, responsible for directing a multimillion-dollar research and development portfolio, driving strategic investments in advanced technologies for NASA's Moon to Mars program, planetary defense and national security across the 9-branch, 500+employee Mechanical Systems Division. He also establishes and manages critical partnerships with NASA centers, academia and industry to accelerate technology maturation and infusion, and oversees new business development initiatives, securing funding and advancing innovative solutions for current and future NASA missions.
Prior to this, he helped oversee and guide the planetary protection efforts of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program. His expertise is in program, project and risk management, decision-making under uncertainty and systems engineering and integration for space missions over the entire lifecycle, with a strong background in modeling, analysis and optimization of complex, large-scale systems with applications for astronomy, astrophysics, planetary and Earth sciences.
Giuseppe has contributed to a variety of NASA missions and projects such as:
- JWST, the James Webb Space Telescope, for which he spearheaded the development of a Bayesian-based model validation approach and uncertainty quantification framework that led to drastic reductions in the time and cost of the required analysis cycles with superior results when compared to state-of-the-art methodologies. For further details, see here.
- EXCLAIM, the EXperiment for Cryogenic Large-Aperture Intensity Mapping, a far-infrared balloon-borne telescope whose development he led as chief engineer,
- PRIME, the PRime-focus Infrared Microlensing Experiment, whose near-infrared camera development he led as chief engineer,
- ATLAST, the Advanced-Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope, now known as Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO),
- OSIRIS-REx, the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer,
- Micro-X, the High-Resolution Microcalorimeter X-ray Imaging Rocket,
- feasibility and multidisciplinary optimization studies of instrumentation for space telescopes (e.g., Micro-Spec), payloads for Earth-imaging satellites, and advanced concepts for lunar exploration.
He first joined NASA in 2009 fully sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA) as one of the two European students selected for the NASA Academy, NASA's premiere leadership program for talented students. During the program, he was one of the select recipients of the John Mather Nobel Scholar Award.
Giuseppe is fond of space policy and contributes to public outreach and educational activities for young students, professionals and the general public in a variety of settings around the world. He speaks six languages and in his spare time he enjoys playing violin and piano, swimming, hiking, skiing, sailing, reading, traveling, helping the poor and hanging out with his friends.