Thomas Mensah

Early life and education Thomas Mensah was born in Kumasi, Ghana, in 1950. His father, J. K. Mensah, was a merchant who shipped cocoa products to chocolate manufacturers in France. Mensah was fluent in French, and won the National French competition held in Accra, Ghana, both at the Ordinary Level (1968) and Advanced Level (1970).

Career Mensah worked at Air Products and Chemicals from 1980 to 1983. Mensah improved the manufacturing process through a series of innovations, raising the speed of manufacture to 20 meters per second by 1985.

Mensah moved to Bell Laboratories in 1986, where he led a program to develop the first laser-guided weapons for the US Department of Defense guided missile program. This program enabled the development of missiles that travel at the speed of sound (Mach 1).

Mensah served on the board of several organizations, including the AIChE National Board of Directors (1987–1990), and was a trustee of the board of AIChE Foundation and a board member for the NASA Space Grant Consortium at Georgia Institute of Technology. He was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2014.

From early 2016, he worked to create a "Silicon Valley of the South" in the U.S. state of Texas.

Death Mensah died in Kumasi, Ghana, on 27 March 2024, at the age of 74.

Awards Mensah was a recipient of several awards, including Turner's Trumpet Award for Fiber Optics Innovation, the Percy L. Julian Award, the Golden Torch Award, which is the highest award given by NSBE, the William Grimes Award, and the Eminent Engineers award by AIChE. He was also a member of the AIChE 100. In December 2017, he received the Kwame Nkrumah African Genius Award in Science/Technology and Innovation in Ghana.

On 23 November 2017, Mensah delivered the 10th R. P. Baffour Lecture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree after the lecture. In November 2015, he received the International Business Leadership Award from African Leadership magazine in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He has been profiled in Ebony magazines edition of October 2006 and Chemical Engineering Progress Magazines edition of October 2008, March 2009 and March 2015.

Mensah served on the visiting committee in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1988 to 1992. He was the author of four books: Fiber Optics Engineering in 1987, Superconductor Engineering in 1992, his autobiography The Right Stuff Comes in Black, Too in 2013, and Nanotechnology Commercialization in 2017. In the first quarter of 2015, the government of the U.S. state of Georgia passed a House Resolution to commend Mensah and his works.