Vice President for Research's Meritorious Technology/Science Award: Brock LaMeres, Founders Day Faculty Awards, Academic Year 2022-23. Portrait of Brock LaMeres.

Brock LaMeres

Brock LaMeres, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has won the 2023 Vice President of Research and Economic Development Award for Meritorious Technology/Science, which recognizes an MSU faculty member who has made significant technological contributions with potential for transfer to private industry. Sponsored by the Office of Research and Economic Development, the award carries a $2,500 prize. 

Shortly after joining the MSU faculty in 2006, LaMeres began applying his interest in innovative computing architectures to a challenge that NASA has dealt with for decades: creating spacecraft computers that can resist radiation particles emitted by the sun. For the past decade, with more than $6 million in funding from NASA and help from more than 60 MSU undergraduates and nearly 20 graduate students, LaMeres has developed RadPC.  

Built with off-the-shelf computer components to make it more affordable and easier to produce than specialized NASA hardware, RadPC is set to be tested on a 2024 NASA moon mission. LaMeres, who earned his bachelor’s in electrical engineering from MSU in 1998, recently launched a company, Resilient Computing, to license and refine the technology for use in satellites and spacecraft. 

According to nominator Nick Zelver, senior technology manager in MSU’s Technology Transfer Office, LaMeres is an exemplar of leading a technology out of the research lab so it can have a positive impact on society. “He has created a viable commercial spinout from MSU that promises to be a great benefit to our community and university.”