Thomas O. Mensah, an AIChE Fellow and a pioneer in fiber optics technoloies, died on March 27, 2024, after a brief ill ness. He was 74.
Dr. Mensah served as the Members-at-Large of NSEF Executive Committee from 2015-2018.
Born in Kumasi, Ghana, Mensah began his chemical engineering training at Kumasi's Univ. of Science and Technology. He later earned an MS in the modeling of chemical processes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD in chemical engineering from the Univ. of Akron.
Mensah was the President and CEO of Georgia Aerospace (Atlanta, GA), a manufacturer of nanocomposites for defense applications, including unmanned aerial vehicles and missile systems. As one of the inventors of fiber optics technologies, his patents in the 1980s reduced fiber optics costs to a level comparable to copper cables, and helped pave the way for advances in high-speed internet and digital communication.
A director of AIChE from 1988-1990, Mensah's leadership roles in AIChE spanned decades. Among his contributions to AIChE, he served as a leader of the Materials Engineering and Sciences Div. and the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum. He was also an early advocate for the Minority Affairs Committee (MAC) - receiving MAC's William Grimes Award and establishing MAC's Eminent Engineers Forum. For his work in fiber optics, AIChE named Mensah one of the "100 Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era" in 2008.
A recipient of the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation, Mensah was also an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He was the author of the books Fiber Optics Engineering (1987), Superconductor Engineering (1992), and The Right Stuff Comes in Black, Too - an autobiography (2013).
Mensah was also a supporter of the AIChE Foundation, and championed initiatives to bridge the education gap and inspire the next generation of innovators in his home country.
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