Before he graduated from college, Tom Ditto, then Tom DeWitt, had two films in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent and circulating collection. As an artist he was awarded Individual Fellowships by the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Film Institute. His work in the arts used technology in new ways, one of which led to a patent. In 1995 became a P.I. for the National Science Foundation based on his work in optics. In 2006 he became a Fellow of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. He took the surname Ditto when he married the former Beverly Botto in 1994.