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As the Director of Training and Academic Programs for National Instruments, Dave Wilson works with the both NI headquarters and more than 45 NI branches around the globe. He ensures the most effective academic product development strategies and messages are implemented worldwide.

Before joining NI, Dave worked for the Xerox Corporation and Keithley Instruments as a research engineer and  software developer. Upon joining NI in 1991 as a Michigan-area district sales manager, he began driving the adoption of NI measurement and automation solutions throughout the automotive industry. In this role, he presented more than 50 technical seminars, wrote hundreds of applications with customers, and received multiple industry recognition awards.

In 1995, Wilson became the director of data acquisition marketing where he led successful launches for products that have become key parts of the NI product line including motion control, Vision, DAQ boards, and PXI. He also developed product and corporate messages and led initiatives to work with R&D to incorporate customer-recommended features into new products. In 2000, Wilson became the international sales director for NI Japan where he led the branch to record growth.

Wilson took on the role of Director for NI’s Academic programs in 2010 and since then has delivered more than 60 keynotes on the application of next-generation technologies in 30 countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas. He has met with the ministers of education in Russia, Kosovo, Mexico, Thailand and many Deans of engineering to discuss ways to adopt new generation technologies for science and engineering in university curricula. He has led the launches of NI’s myDAQ and myRIO products as well as authored numerous articles and interviewed with multiple domestic and international publications including EE Times Asia, Nikkei Electronics,  Bits & Chips, Evaluation Engineering, Desktop Engineering, and Sensors.

Wilson currently serves on industry boards helping guide educationally oriented companies in their sales, marketing and product development efforts. He also holds patents for data acquisition and I/O technology innovations.

Additionally, Wilson has developed and chairs NI’s Graphical System Design Achievement Awards. For over ten years, this event has recognized NI customers around the world for accomplishments in engineering and science and is attended by educational and industry participants like Intel, Xilinx, Popular Science, over 40 international editors.

Wilson holds a bachelor of science degree in applied physics from the State University of New York.