Kam was born in 1955 and grew up in Tel Aviv, Israel. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1976 from Tel Aviv University. Between 1976 and 1983 he served in the Isarel Defense Forces. In 1983 he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He received a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1985 and a Doctorate degree in 1987, both from Drexel University.

Kam worked as a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University between 1986 and 2014. In September 2014 he joined the New Jersey Institute of Technology as Professor and Dean of the Newark College of Engineering.

His research interest include detection and estimation decision fusion and distributed detection , robot navigation and data mining. He has authored over 150 journal and conference papers in these areas. He is an active IEEE volunteer, having served as Chair of the IEEE Philadelphia Section, Chair of the IEEE Region 2 Committee, Member of the IEEE Board of Directors, Chair of the IEEE Audit Committee, Vice President for Educational Activities, and 2011 President and CEO.

In late 2004 Kam was elected IEEE Vice President for Educational Activities, having served earlier as Director of IEEE Region 2 (Eastern USA). He served as Vice President for three years during which IEEE expanded greatly its activities in pre-university engineering education and in accreditation of academic programs. The major pre-university programs established during his tenure were the engineering education portal TryEngineering.org  (a joint project of IEEE, IBM and the New York Hall of Science); and internationalization of the IEEE Teacher In-Service Program. TryEngineering.org is a portal for pre-university students, their parents, teachers and school counselors, which provides information about all branches of engineering, technology and computing, and about all available accredited programs for undergraduate and graduate study in these disciplines. The Teacher In-Service Program (TISP) trains IEEE volunteers to work with pre-university teachers in order to integrate engineering and engineering design in the pre-university curriculum. Since 2003 TISP has expanded from being exclusively a US-based program to Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Malaysia, Peru, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and South Africa.

In the area of academic accreditation, he established accreditation evaluator training program for the Peruvian accreditation body ICACIT, and assisted in the creation of an accrediting body for engineering and technology in the Caribbean, CACET. He has also developed ties between IEEE and the China Association for Science and Technology, and created the informational portal on accreditation of academic programs in engineering, technology, and computing, Accreditation.org

For his activities in the areas of pre-university and university education, Kam received in 2016 the IEEE Haraden Pratt Award.

Kam was candidate for the office IEEE President-Elect In 2008 but lost to Pedro Ray. In 2009 he was elected to that position (the other candidates in the 2009 elections were Joseph Lillie and J. Roberto Boisson de Marca). He served as President and CEO of IEEE in 2011. His election platform emphasized expansion of IEEE to new technical areas (especially the intersection between Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science and the Life Sciences); providing effective services to practicing engineers; and increasing the value of IEEE membership

Kam initiated the effort to create a large industrial-grade Makerspace at NJIT. The initiative was supported by the New Jersey legislature. The first stage of the Makerspace (9,500 square feet) was opened in early 2018. It is the largest facility of its kind in New Jersey. Among other functions, the Makerspace offers equipment and devices for 3D printing, additive manufacturing, material cutting and shaping, metrology, visualization, computing, emulation, and simulation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the NJIT Makerspace was converted to a production facility, manufacturing reusable and washable face shields for medical personnel and first responders,.

Kam developed the plans for NJIT's School of Applied Engineering and Technology, which was inaugurated in 2018.

As part of the 2019 celebrations of the Centennial of the Newark College of Engineering (NCE, established 1919), Kam initiated the "NCE 100" Hall of Fame, whose inductees include, among others, Pierre Ramond, Ellen M. Pawlikowski and Gerard J. Foschini.

• 1997, “Sensor Fusion for Mobile Robot Navigation”  (1997, Proceedings of the IEEE), with Xiaoxun Zhu and Paul Kalata.

• 1997, "Decision Fusion and Supervisor Synthesis in Decentralized Discrete-Event Systems," (1997, American Control Conference), with J. Prosser and H. Kwatny.

• 2002, “Neural Network Architectures for Control”  (2002, IEEE Control Systems Magazine), with Allon Guez and James Eilbert.

• 2005, “Why won’t Jane go to Engineering School”   (2005, The Institute, IEEE)

• 2006, “Will ABET Survive to the Year 2032?”   (2006, The Interface, IEEE & ASEE)

• 2007, “What Should Be the First Professional Degree in Engineering?”   (2005, The Institute, IEEE), with A. Peskin.