Tony Strawa

Dr. Anthony (Tony) Strawa is the Chief of the New Pursuits Office, and the Director of the New Opportunity Center (NOC). The NOC supports acquisition of new business for Ames, primarily through development of high-quality proposals that are responsive to NASA Announcements of Opportunity. He has been at Ames since 1987.

Dr. Strawa has been involved in experimental measurement, analysis, and instrumentation development for aerospace and environmental applications for thirty years. He was Group Lead for the Aerosol and Cloud Microphysics Group that studied the effects of aerosols on air pollution and climate. That group developed a technique that discriminates types of polar stratospheric clouds using satellite observation and developed an instrument capable of measuring aerosol optical properties in situ using cavity ring-down technology. Dr. Strawa holds the patent for the Advanced Sunphotometer concept. While working in the Thermophysics Division at NASA/Ames he led a team of technicians and scientists to upgrade the instrumentation in the Ames Hypervelocity Free-Flight Facility. He was principal investigator on the multi-million dollar Radiative Heating Experiment, scheduled for launch on NASA’s Aeroassist Flight Experiment which was designed to measure the radiant heating of a vehicle entering the earth’s atmosphere at speeds of 10 km/sec.

Dr. Strawa received an MS and PhD in Aeronautical Engineering from Stanford University in 1987 and a BS degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the US Air Force Academy. He served in the US Air Force for 7 years.