Chief Scientist, Kymeta
Ryan Stevenson joined Kymeta as a founding member, bringing distinguished experience spanning RF and microwave engineering, photonics, and semiconductor manufacturing. His career has been defined by bridging the gap between fundamental research and scalable commercial solutions, consistently taking innovative products from initial laboratory breakthroughs to tangible industry impact. This approach positioned him to guide Kymeta from its initial spin-out to becoming an established industry player, and to achieve the milestone breakthrough that materially advanced the performance and adoption of satellite antenna technology.
For over a decade, Stevenson played a central role developing Kymeta's unique metamaterials-based antennas, which continue to deliver industry-leading efficiency and performance. His leadership encompasses a series of pioneering achievements: the world's first commercial metamaterials multi-constellation surface, the world's first commercial electronically steered array flat panel antenna, antenna surfaces ranking among the world's most reliable, and leading benchmark performance for low earth orbit systems. Each advancement built toward his defining achievement: successfully integrating Ku and Ka band operations into a single metamaterials-based antenna.
This milestone represents more than a technical breakthrough. It fundamentally transforms how the satellite industry approaches connectivity. Before Stevenson's innovation, the barrier between Ku and Ka bands prevented truly seamless satellite communications. His solution eliminated this critical constraint, enabling terminals to operate across multiple frequency bands and orbital architectures simultaneously. This creates unprecedented redundancy and resilience, bringing the industry closer to the always-on, reliable connectivity that military and commercial sectors have demanded for years.
The significance of this achievement becomes clear when considering its enabling role in next-generation systems. Seamless multi-band connectivity will underpin critical national security endeavors like integrated defense architectures, where ground-based radar, interceptor systems, and space-based sensors must communicate in real-time through interference-resistant networks. In contested scenarios where network resiliency faces threats from jamming, outages, or extreme weather, Stevenson's breakthrough provides the foundation for systems that can automatically switch between connectivity sources, keeping vital operations online. The implications extend across humanitarian and commercial applications wherever resilient connectivity is essential.
Beyond his technical achievements, Stevenson serves on the Board of Directors for the Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability (DIFI) Consortium, supporting the mission to enable interoperability between antenna systems and digital ground systems while preventing vendor lock-in. He was nominated to the Forbes Technology Council in 2022, serving until 2024.
Ryan Stevenson's breakthrough has positioned the satellite industry at the threshold of a new era, one where connectivity across frequency bands and orbital architectures becomes as seamless and reliable as the networks that connect our phones, establishing a foundation that will transform satellite communications for decades to come.
