Dr. Brian Kempa is a research engineer in the Integrated Flight Systems area of the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center. He applies formal techniques for trusted, distributed autonomy, leveraging over 10 years of experience developing embedded software for mission-critical systems. He currently serves as the Technical Lead for the Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA) project, where he is responsible for the autonomy applications on the four Starling satellites and the architecture of the DSA flight software for multiple upcoming flight opportunities.

Brian began his NASA career as a Pathways intern in 2018, converting to a career appointment in 2024. During his tenure, he has contributed to several high-profile NASA missions and projects utilizing cFS, including DSA/Starling, VIPER, and the Gateway Vehicle Systems Manager (VSM). Additionally, he is a core maintainer of the open-source Space ROS robotics framework and serves as the project manager for a task to combine Space ROS and cFS on the High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) architecture.

Dr. Kempa earned his Ph.D. in Aerospace and Computer Engineering from Iowa State University in 2024, with his doctoral research focusing on runtime verification and formal methods for autonomous space systems. He also holds a Master of Science and a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Iowa State. He is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has authored multiple academic publications and is a contributing author to both the NASA Small Spacecraft Technology State-of-the-Art report and the Multi-Agent Swarm State-of-the-Art report.