Alexander Weldon Email & Phone Number

Kent, Wa, Us

Kent, Wa, Us

Leading the Materials & Processes org supporting Blue Origin's portfolio of Engines. This includes BE-4, the BE-3 family of engines, and other programs.

Kent, Wa, Us

Currently leading the Materials & Processes team supporting Blue Origin's portfolio of Engines. This includes BE-4, the BE-3 family of engines, and other programs.

Kent, Wa, Us

Managed the Materials Team at Blue Origin. Responsibilities included metallic and nonmetallic Materials & Processes.

Kent, Wa, Us

Currently managing a diverse team supporting Materials research, development, and implementation to support Blue Origin's Engines and Launch Vehicles. Materials & processes include traditional and novel metallic forms, composite/nonmetals, coatings, thermal protection systems, and soft goods. Responsibilities also include significant characterization, forensics, and failure analysis.

Kent, Wa, Us

As Production Manager and Materials & Processes Engineering Manager, I manage a cross-functional team of personnel to support all manufacturing and programmatic Production needs at Firefly. These efforts include Materials & Processes development (testing materials, process development, generation of allowables, authoring specifications), Manufacturing Engineering (DFM, Tooling and Process Development, Composite and Metallic Hardware support), and Machining efforts (Internal and External 5th Axis machining, Quality Control, Manufacturing scheduling). These efforts have a large emphasis on the external collaborations with government agencies and private industry.

Firefly Space Systems provides launch services for the small satellite industry (Payloads < 1000 lb). We are based in Austin, TX, and are co-located with our 200-acre test site in Briggs, TX (20 miles North of Austin). I lead our Materials & Processes group, as well as Materials R&D efforts, and support the Propulsion, Structures, and Avionics directorates. In addition, I manage our growing Production efforts. These efforts include machining work, composite manufacturing, scheduling, and design of new facilities.

To stand up Firefly's burgeoning Production efforts, and in the absence of a greybeard Director, I recruited and managed a cadre of personnel to support the manufacturing development needs of the Propulsion, Structures, Stage Systems, and Avionics directorates. These personnel include Materials & Process Engineers, Composite and Metallic Manufacturing Engineers, Drafters, and Machinists. Day-to-day responsibilities include high-level interdepartmental coordination of Production efforts, ongoing materials research/development, DFM and manufacturing support to all directorates, and scheduling/prioritization of all internal and external machining efforts.Responsibilities also include designing and owning Production facilities, and coordinating Production Requirements and the Requirements of other Directorates. These facilities support materials research, composite manufacturing, machining operations, and vehicle subassembly and integration.

FireFly is a ground-based small satellite launch company with locations in Austin, TX and Hawthorne, CA. We are building a family of launch vehicles to serve the >1,000kg to Low Earth Orbit market. I personally handle high-level materials and composite research, design, testing, scale-up, and manufacturing duties.

Bethlehem, Pa, Us

Completing postdoctoral research in Professor James Gilchrist's Laboratory for Particle Mixing and Self-Organization.• Completing research projects, publications, and presentations related to the NSF Scalable Nanomanufacturing program.• Working in the area of particle and coating technologies, with a strong focus on materials/device development.• Specific postdoctoral research foci include the understanding and publications of various types of instability-driven macroscale defects in coating technologies.• Focused on synthesizing thin films through convective deposition and Langmuir-Blodgett techniques and studying these processes from fundamental and application-driven perspectives. • Improving and perfecting scale-up techniques to synthesize and coat wide arrays of particle and non-particulate thin films with controllable and varying morphologies on a wide array of surfaces.

Bethlehem, Pa, Us

Completing doctoral research in Professor James Gilchrist's Laboratory for Particle Mixing and Self-Organization• Working in the area of particle and coating technologies, with a strong focus on materials/device development.• Focused on synthesizing thin films through convective deposition and studying this process from fundamental and application-driven perspectives. • Improved and perfected techniques to synthesize and coat wide arrays of particle thin films with controllable and varying morphologies on an array of surfaces. • Developed cell capture devices and viral filtration membranes using these particle thin films as a platform. • Assisted with collaborative projects using convectively deposited microlens arrays to increase the efficiency of light emitting diodes (LEDs) and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs).Research PresentationsOver the course of my PhD I have given 21 presentations. 15/21 were invited talks and poster presentations. These ranged from those given at highly technical conferences to high-level presentations to Lehigh University's Board of Trustees and academic STEM research panels.

Bethlehem, Pa, Us

As a graduate student working under Professors James F. Gilchrist (Chemical Engineering, Lehigh) and Xuanhong Cheng (Materials Science, Lehigh), managed the research activities of four full-time undergraduates• Coordinated day-to-day and long-term experimental plans and research directions• Synthesized polymeric membranes with monodisperse pore size for viral filtration• Membranes fabricated through binary convective deposition of oxide (silica) microspheres alongside polymeric (polystyrene, polyethylene glycol) nanoparticles with subsequent removal of the silica microspheres through HF/KOH etching• Designed membrane testing platform in Autocad and contracted out for manufacturing • Modeled fluid flow through gross membranes and membrane pores using Comsol Multiphysics• Contributed significant results for 2012 ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces publication entitled: “Fabrication of Macroporous Polymeric Membranes through Binary Convective Deposition”

Bethlehem, Pa, Us

As a graduate student working under Professors James F. Gilchrist (Chemical Engineering, Lehigh) and Xuanhong Cheng (Materials Science, Lehigh), managed the research activities of three full-time undergraduates• Coordinated day-to-day and long-term experimental plans and research directions• Worked to develop immunoaffinity cell capture devices with controllably reversible cell attachment though ferromagnetic particles• Fabricated crystalline ferromagnetic particle monolayers through convective deposition• Used surface treatments to tailor ferromagnetic particle liftoff under experimental conditions and applied magnetic forces• Developed and tested cell capture devices with microscale cell traps • Modeled fluid flow in the devices and around the traps• Preliminary work for 2011 Langmuir publication entitled: “Effect of Surface Nanotopography on Immunoaffinity Cell Capture in Microfluidic Devices”

Princeton, Nj, Us

Completed senior thesis with Professor Celeste Nelson at Princeton University• Studied varying tissue morphologies in mammary epithelial cells under neoplastic conditions• Specifically investigated bulk and microscale properties of collagen gels to be used as a polymer scaffold in tissue engineering research• Examined a wide variety of collagen gels and performed extensive rheometric experiments to characterize their behavior under varying strains

Sydney, New South Wales (Nsw), Au

Practicum Student under Professor Vicki Chen at University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia• Studied BSA/BLG protein distributions on Polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration membranes paralleling wastewater and water treatment processes• Investigated protein removal using acidic, basic, and enzymatic protein removal techniques• Ultrafiltration work was complemented with analysis through spectrophotometry, PCR, and MALDI-MS techniques.

Santa Clara, California, Us

Second summer as part of the Intel Honors Internship Program (iHIP)• Worked in Intel's Components Research Division; Components Research develops next generation technologies for Intel Corporation• Within Components Research, worked in the Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) group designing an EUVL test mask and performing extensive simulations of its performance under patterning conditions. • Received Intel's highest rating (Outstanding) in performance review at the close of my work.

Santa Clara, California, Us

As a member of the Intel Honors Internship Program (iHIP), worked as a manufacturing technician in Non-Copper Metrology within Lithography• Obtained Level 1 Certifications for five metrology tools• Took upon the responsibility for troubleshooting wafers failing metrology checkpoints• Operated independently and with minimal oversight to maximize wafer throughput

Doctor Of Philosophy (Phd), Chemical Engineering

Bachelor Of Science And Engineering (Bse), Chemical Engineering

Education record