Eni G. Njoku was born in Ibadan, Nigeria. He began high school at King’s College Lagos, Nigeria and finished at the Leys School Cambridge, England. He attended Clare College, University of Cambridge where he studied Natural Sciences and Electrical Sciences, graduating with a BA in 1972. He was awarded an English-Speaking Union scholarship to study in the United States where he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating with SM and PhD degrees in electrical engineering in 1974 and 1976, respectively. In 1976 he was awarded a postdoctoral National Research Council Resident Research Associateship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA. He was hired by JPL in 1977 to support programs in satellite microwave remote sensing of Earth.
Dr. Njoku’s research focused on soil moisture remote sensing and development of satellite mission concepts for global mapping of soil moisture from space. He was a U.S. team member for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR) developed by Japan and launched on NASA and JAXA satellites. He was the principal investigator for feasibility studies of large deployable antennas for soil moisture and ocean salinity sensing, leading to NASA’s successful development and launch of the Soil Moisture Active Passive mission (SMAP) in 2015. Dr. Njoku served as project scientist for SMAP from 2008-2013 with responsibilities for mission science and for coordinating data applications with end-users in water resources, agricultural production, flood and drought monitoring, and climate research.
Dr. Njoku retired from JPL in 2016 and pursues independent interests in research, writing and education.