Ave K. Kludze

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Ave K.
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Kludze
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Dr. Ave K. Kludze, Jr. is an engineering program manager at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters.    He manages various agency-wide multidisciplinary projects and studies that inform NASA’s strategic decision-making.

For his outstanding accomplishments in Space Science and Technology, he was recently profiled on Cable News Network (CNN) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The following link should take you to the CNN documentary and the BBC feature article:

CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/08/03/ave.kludze.NASA/index.html
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7881708.stm

Dr. Kludze has held positions at various NASA Centers including the NASA Langley Research Center, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and NASA Headquarters.

Over his sixteen (16) years at NASA, he has worked in various capacities on several projects and missions including theCALIPSOTRMMGIFTSLDCMERBSSCAN, NASA Rockets Study, etc. In 2006, he became the Technical Advisor to the NASA Inspector General. At NASA Langley, he was also the manager of NASA Langley's Integrated Design Center, developed under his leadership, to propose and design systems to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. In 2004, Dr. Kludze and a group of NASA engineers designed and proposed the Extravehicular Activity Infrared (EVA IR) camera for space-walking astronauts. The camera fulfilled a critical inspection need for the Shuttle Program, to detect on-orbit cracks and surface defects in the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) sections of the Space Shuttle's Thermal Protection System.

While at NASA Langley, Ave was selected to join the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC), an organization made up of some of NASA's best and brightest, as a NASA Systems Engineering expert. The NESC was created after the Columbia incident. Before joining the NESC, he was also a Systems Engineer and the Traceability and Verification Manager on the CALIPSO mission, currently in orbit. Prior to joining NASA Langley, he worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as a Senior Spacecraft Analyst/Systems Engineer where he gained extensive knowledge in spacecraft mission operations and ground systems flying spacecrafts.

Dr. Kludze is a Visiting Professor and adjunct faculty member at a number of universities including University of Maryland University College, the George Mason, DeVry and Strayer Universities where he teaches graduate and doctoral students. He has a number of prestigious NASA and other external awards, and several publications to his credit.

Ave was born at Hohoe in Ghana, where he attended Adisadel College. He received his bachelor of science degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University; a master of science in Systems Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and a doctoral degree in Systems Engineering from the George Washington University.

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