Rate My Professor Charles Camarda

Charles Camarda serves as a distinguished engineer in residence on detail assignment to the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, affiliated with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Born in Queens, New York, he earned a BS in Aerospace Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1974, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from George Washington University in 1980, and a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1990, with a thesis on advanced modal methods for transient thermal and structural response. Camarda began his career at NASA's Langley Research Center as a research scientist in 1974, advancing to head the Thermal Structures Branch in 1996, where he oversaw research on high-speed aircraft and reusable launch vehicles, including test facilities like the Thermal Structures Laboratory. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 1996 as part of Group 16, he served as a backup crew member for Expedition 8 to the International Space Station and flew as a mission specialist on STS-114, the Space Shuttle Discovery's return-to-flight mission in 2005, accumulating 13 days, 21 hours, and 32 minutes in space.

Camarda's research specializations include thermostructural analysis, heat pipe technologies for hypersonic vehicle leading edges, composite materials, and structural dynamics. He holds nine patents, including the Micro Heat Pipe Panels and Heat Exchanger with Oscillating Flow, and has authored over 60 technical publications, such as 'Thermostructural applications of heat pipes for cooling leading edges of high-speed aerospace vehicles' (1992), 'Engineering the future workforce required by a global engineering industry' (2015), and 'Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design (ICED): Creativity and Innovation in a CDIO-Like Curriculum' (2013). His innovations, notably the Heat-Pipe-Cooled Sandwich Panel, earned an IR-100 award in 1983 as one of the top 100 technical innovations. He received nearly two dozen awards for technical accomplishments during his 46-year NASA tenure, including roles as Director of Engineering at Johnson Space Center in 2005 and Senior Advisor for Innovation in the NASA Office of the Chief Engineer until his retirement in 2019. Camarda pioneered the EPIC engineering pedagogical approach for complex multidisciplinary problem-solving and delivered public lectures on space exploration and innovation.