Daniel Ceperley

Dan Ceperley is a champion of new space ventures, innovative space technologies, and sustainable development of the space economy. As a founder and leader of a new space company he is passionate about bringing modern business models to the space industry.

Dan Ceperley is the CEO and cofounder of LeoLabs. He, and the founding team, created LeoLabs to drive advances in space traffic safety, space situational awareness (SSA), and preservation of the space environment through actionable, real-time information.

Collisions with debris are the number one risk to safe operations in space and new data sources are required to measure and reduce that risk. LeoLabs is the leading provider of commercial collision warning services and real-time Space Domain Awareness (SDA) for low Earth orbit (LEO). These services are powered by LeoLabs’ worldwide network of radars and its cloud-based software system.

Prior to LeoLabs, he worked at SRI International, a not-for-profit research laboratory, where he was the Program Director for Space Debris Tracking, the Deputy Director of the Oceans and Space Systems Center, and the supervisor for the Allen Telescope Array (a radio astronomy facility in northern California). Dr. Ceperley led numerous SSA research and development efforts aimed at developing technologies for tracking the large constellations of low-cost satellites created by the recent wave of innovation in the space industry. Dan got his start in the space industry working on the design of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph (TPF-C) as part of a research program supporting the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). His work investigated the optical performance of advanced concepts for imaging Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

Dan is a Technical Advisor to Space for Humanity. This non-profit seeks to greatly increase the number of people who have experienced space flight, and thus promote the greater use of space. He was featured in Via Satellite’s 2018 Young People to Watch List. In addition to satellite tracking, Dr. Ceperley has technical expertise in synthetic aperture radar imaging, precision timing and navigation systems, electromagnetic modeling, and ultrasound imaging. He holds a PhD and MS in Electrical Engineering from U. C. Berkeley and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia.