Thomas Mensah

Dr. Tom Mensah is a Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors and one of the four original Fiber Optics Innovators and inventors in the United States, whose contributions provided the enabling technologies that permitted the world wide replacement of copper wire cables with fiber optic cables. This innovation led to the wiring of America with this new media. He holds seven US patents in Fiber Optics, averaging one patent a year, all awarded in the short time frame of six years.

As a young chemical engineer at Corning Glass Works, where fiber optics was invented, Tom Mensah solved an industry-wide problem through a series of inventions that permitted optical glass fibers to be manufactured at speeds 10 times the industry standard in the early eighties. This speed barrier has been in place for almost 15 years, since practical optical fiber was developed at Corning Glass Works in the early 70's. The manufacturing rate of fiber optics was 2 meters a second due to incessant breakage of the fragile glass, as it is being drawn. Tom Mensah developed a system that allowed thin protective coating to be applied to the glass while it is pulled at ultra high speeds 20 meters a second without manufacturing interruption due to glass breakage (setting a world record). This led to low cost optical fibers which support a faster and robust internet of today.

One of his seven patents allowed carbon dioxide gas to be introduced into the five micron thick boundary layers near the glass which prevented bubbles from being trapped in the coated fiber during manufacturing, leading to defect free high quality optical fibers used in submarine cable applications. These ultra strong optical fibers used in undersea / submarine cables to connect continents and countries (US, Europe, Russia, China, Japan, South America, Middle East, Australia and recently South Africa) have extended the global reach of the Internet of today. Tom received the Corning Glass Works Individual outstanding contributor award, ($10,000 Prize) in 1985 for his innovations in the high speed fiber optics manufacturing process.

Tom moved to AT&T Bell Laboratories where he received three patents on the Fiber Optics Guided Missile Technology. These patents allowed smart munitions and real time missile targeting using fiber optics where by pilots can launch missiles that are guided to targets using lasers for precision and accuracy.

Dr. Tom Mensah has recently served as the Principal Investigator on a Major DOD contract on Nanotechnology Based Weapons Development Intitiative for the US Air Force and Worked on Advanced Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Technology Development for the Department of Defense. Dr. Tom Mensah’s innovations in Fiber Optics have also impacted the US economy significantly, and supported the Pentagon and platforms like the modern day Internet, where Pictures, Data, Voice and Video can be transmitted faster around the globe due to the high bandwidth of fiber optics media. His work on precision guided weapons at AT&T Bell Laboratories laid the ground work for the current generation of Laser and GPS guided smart weapons used by the US Military.

Tom received his Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from Montpelier University, (USTL), France in 1978, and holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Modeling and Simulation of Chemical Processes from MIT. Tom has also served on the visiting committee in Chemical Engineering at MIT, (1988-1992).

Dr. Tom Mensah was the keynote speaker at the United Nations Energy Forum, 2009, and currently serves as Chairman of the Scientific Council of the UN Energy Forum. He is also a Board Member of the US High Speed Rail Association. He has served as Chairman of the AIChE Materials and Engineering Sciences Division and is editor of 2 books, Fiber Optics Engineering (1987) and Superconductor Engineering (1992). His third book, "The Right Stuff" Comes in Black, Too is on Amazon.com and Bookwhirl.com. Tom has served as AIChE Board Director, and currently is a Trustee Board Member of AIChE Foundation and a Director of the Nanoscale Engineering Forum.

He is deputy director of Technology Region II of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He won the Percy Julian Award in 2011, Eminent Engineer Award in 2008, and was named AIChE 100 in 2008. He is a fellow of AIChE, and Associate Fellow of The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is a leading authority on manufacturing innovation, advanced weapon platforms development, fiber optics, the Internet platform, smartphones, mobile devices and nanotechnology. He is also Chairman of EARI a Virtual Reality and Video Game Design Company.