Founder and CEO of a green energy technology company developing a hydrogen fuel cell powerplant for aviation and mobile energy storage applications. Hydroplane is a two time contract awardee of the USAF Agility Prime Program, Navy SBIR program, and Army xTech 8 program.

Research Associate Professor of Astronautical Engineering specializing in entry vehicle design, supersonic aerodynamics, in space propulsion, and green transportation technology. I teach a graduate course in entry descent and landing systems.

Senior Vice President and Advisor of Virgin Hyperloop One responsible for strategy, organizational leadership, and implementation for following functional areas: Systems Engineering processes, Product Lifecycle Management, Safety and Mission Assurance, Regulatory Compliance, Systems Architecture, Verification and Validation, and Systems Analysis.

Project Manager and Mission Manager for an International Space Station (ISS) fundamental physics facility, the Cold Atom Laboratory. Responsibilities included technical and resource management of a team of 50 engineers and scientists in the proprosal, system architecting, design, fabrication, crew training, human factors assessment, and integration and test of a first of its kind ultra-cold quantum gas multi-user facility. Based on the principles of laser cooling and magnetic trapping, the UHV facility is designed to achieve a quantum gas temperature of 100 picoKelvin in a microgravity environment. The scientific and technological objectives include studies of Efimov Physics, Atom Interferometry, Atom Lasers, and demonstration of Quantum sensors. Our International Science team includes three Nobel Laureates in Physics and leaders in condensed matter physics from around the world. The mission won a Popular Mechanics Breakthrough award in 2016.

Systems Engineer and Study Manager for a Low-Cost Lander concept development team responsible defining/exploring the mission, EDL, and science mission architecture and trade space.Systems Engineer and Study manager for a Mars Lander concept development team including definition of the EDL, mobility, sample handling, and science mission architecture.Systems Engineer for NASA Mars Orbiter Mission for the 2016 opportunity. Duties include resource management, requirements definition, system modeling, payload-bus systems engineering, entry system consulting, ATLO and Integration & Test planning, and international collaboration with ESA.Lead systems engineer for a Mars Ascent vehicle study team. Responsibilities include task management of budget, schedule, and personnel, requirements definition, reliability assessment, technology maturation planning, risk management, and proposal writing.Principal Investigator and Task Manager for the Orion Earth Entry Capsule drogue parachute subscale test program. Responsible for test design, conduct, fabrication, diagnostics development, and computational analyses, and contract management. Also a member of NASA JSC expert review panel responsible for Orion Parachute system risk assessment, system reliability quantification, and V&V program development/conduct.

Responsible for technical leadership of a Discovery mission concept proposal to obtain a Mars sample and return it to Earth. Responsibilities included leadership of a team of NASA/industry/academia engineers and scientists in the development of the flight system, payload, missiondesign, and delivery and writing of a Step 1 proposal (rated Cat II).

Lead Entry System Engineer responsible for developing an entry system for a New Frontiers Venus lander mission concept including technical direction and management of a multi-NASA center and industry team, requirements definition, design trades, technology development and V&V program planning, and Step 1 and 2 proposal writing and site visit.integration, power and communications, requirements definition, and mission design trades.

Senior Systems Engineer for the Entry Descent and Landing Team on the Mars Science Laboratory Mission. Engineering lead for the supersonic aerodynamic decelerator qualification program. Responsible for the requirements definition, product specification, and verification and validation program. Led the development of novel CFD / Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis program, parachute design and fabrication, subsonic structural qualification program, supersonic wind tunnel test programs at NASA Glenn and Ames, subcontract management, peer review organization, presentation at NASA reviews and aerospace conferences, documentation in proceedings and journals, and overall program management.Engineering lead for the Mars landing engine plume impingement ground interaction program. Responsible for the engine and test bed design/fabrication, landing site alteration test at NASA Ames, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation effort at NASA LaRC, and particle erosion test program at AEDC. Authored conference and journal articles on the program findings.

Contract Technical Manager for the Parachute Decelerator System on the Mars Science Laboratory Mission (Mars 09). Responsible for requirements definition, technical oversight of fabrication and testing, contract technical management, and leading the JPL-NASA-industry-academia team.

Task Manager for the Prometheus 1 Ion Thruster Technology program. Project management responsibilities during this Phase A activity included management of a $5.2M annual budget, developing work assignments and management of 12 engineers/technicians, and contract technical management of Boeing and Aerojet industry subcontracts. Provided technical leadership over the fabrication of thruster hardware, integration and performance testing, and space environmental testing. Task Manager and Co-Investigator for VHITAL, a $4M NRA funded propulsion technology program. Responsibilities included international and domestic contract technical management, technical supervision of thruster component development and testing, coordinating the multi-disciplinary team activities and program reviews, and reporting to management on technical / financial progress.

Task Manager for the Extended Life Test (ELT) of the DS1 Flight Spare Ion Thruster. Test program led to new qualification of NSTAR thruster technology enabling the Dawn mission and future discovery class missions. Responsibilities included conduct of the qualification test, leading the multi-NASA Center post test analysis team, coordinating program reviews, documentation of results in a NASA TR and AIAA proceedings, and reporting to management on technical / financial progress. Project resulted in AIAA best paper award and JPL Test engineer for JIMO Life Modeling and test activity specializing in ion engine testing, data acquisition system setup, high voltage electrical system design, plasma diagnostics, magnetic field modeling, and next generation of ion thruster design. Developed new NSTAR thruster magnetic field design that improves life and efficiency by 20% as part of USC dissertation.

Cognizant Engineer for the Xenon Ion Engines of the Hughes 702 spacecraft program. Responsible for review of unit level qual testing, hardware inspection, process and test anomaly resolution, thruster requirements definition, and product sell off to the customer for Galaxy 3 spacecraft. Participated in spacecraft level testing, integration and on-orbit propulsion system support for the XM2 Satellite Radio Spacecraft.

Electric Propulsion engineer for the X37 Vapor Ingestion Experiments. Designed instrumentation system, data acquisition system, and digital video system for the test rig. Participated in ground testing, variable-gravity flight testing, and test data reduction. Cryogenic Computational fluid dynamicist for propellant tank design and performance analysis for programs including Space Shuttle, SOTV, X37, and company funded IAD.Cryogenic propulsion engineer on the Delta IV Launch Vehicle Common Booster Core Team. Interfaced with vendors for the selection of feed system cryogenic valves. Served as propulsion group’s interface with the engine section design team. Participated in the program from PDR to CDR.