Alberto Conti

As Vice President and General Manager of Civil Space, Dr. Alberto Conti is responsible for Ball Aerospace’s portfolio of civil space systems that span across all science fields, operational weather and Earth observation, as well as advanced technologies development objectives. Conti joined Ball in September 2018 as the Director of New Business and Innovative Solutions for Civil Space where he was responsible for managing new business activities for NASA, NOAA, and other civilian U.S. government agencies as well as for academia and other science organizations.

Previously, Conti served as the Innovation Manager for Civil Space at Northrop Grumman. He also served as the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) innovation scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, the current science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope and the current science and mission operations center for Webb. He served as the Hubble Space Telescope chief engineer for Data Management, the Development Manager for the Community Missions Office, and the Project Manager for the data archive of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer space mission.

He has been a leader in developing data mining tools for the worldwide astronomical community. Conti has also been an early proponent of the use of modern data mining and visualization techniques. Many will recognize him as the co-creator of the GoogleSky concept and a team member of Microsoft’s Worldwide Telescope. Conti has also been actively involved in science communications with two documentaries on Webb. His last effort as executive producer for the film “The Hunt for Planet B” earned him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary in 2022.

Conti holds a M.S. from the University of Trieste and a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.