Dr Nick Stacy received the B.E., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Adelaide in 1984, Stanford University in 1985 and Cornell University in 1993 respectively. His early work included Earth-based planetary radar at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the ERS-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) processor for the Australian Centre for Remote Sensing at BAE Systems, and as a graduate member of the NASA Magellan science team analysing SAR data of the surface of Venus. His PhD researched fine resolution lunar radar observations including the search for ice deposits in the permanently shadowed poles of the Moon.
In 1993 he joined the Defence Science and Technology (DST) group where he researched imaging radar technology using the DST developed Ingara SAR. He has contributed to international collaborations including Australian sensor lead for the Global Hawk deployment to Australia in 2001 and a secondment to the USA for 18 months in 2005. He led the Imaging Radar Systems group from 2001 to 2008 with programs in advanced SAR capabilities such as polarimetric-interferometry. In 2008 he became the Research Leader for the Imaging Systems branch leading a program of research in electro-optic, hyper spectral and SAR sensing combined with automated processing for geospatial intelligence. Since 2015 he has led the DST strategic research program in space and in September 2019 his role changed to Senior Principal Scientist – Space where half his time was contributed to the Smart in the capacity of the Chief Research Officer. Nick stepped down from this role in December 2020 and now provides strategic scientific advice to SmartSat aligned to Defence and related areas of the research program.