John Straus Email & Phone Number

Earth, Oo

Responsibilities: Engineering• ECLSS IPT Lead• Develop Flight Plan and compile and lead Mission Briefings.• Develop Python script to calculate balloon trajectory using forecasted winds that updated with time and location, sonde data, and balloon telemetry.• Stand up mission control for flight operations by developing mission plan and flight procedures, trajectory forecast planning, and testing and operation of avionics telemetry and control software.

Tucson, Arizona, Us

Responsibilities: Lead research efforts on strategic topics critical to the success of the company. Establish working relations with experts in industry, academia, and government labs. • Developed critical in-house procedure ‘Roadmap for Autonomous Flight’, which served as the basis for the autonomous flight development plan.• Research and develop autonomous fleet and shortest path planning algorithms through literature survey, patent research, coding, and testing.• Identified key research areas to improve stratospheric wind forecasting critical to flight autonomy. Developed a plan, budget, and hiring needs for strategically formed Stratospheric Sciences Group.• Served as Interim Director of Product Engineering, directing a team of 30+ people including supervisors in support of vehicle and balloon production. Implemented a prototype engineering design process to provide engineers guidance on design review cycle to specifically address transition from R&D to Production. Ensured successful transition to newly hired VP of Product Engineering.

Tucson, Arizona, Us

Responsibilities: Stand-up the Mission Operations group and manage all mission operations functions: planning, launch, flight, chase/recovery, as well as vehicle and balloon manufacturing. Lead balloon and launch system design efforts for all new missions.• Successfully stood up a functioning Mission Operations group with over 20 new employees hired and trained within 6 months of hire; developed and managed a $1 M budget for hardware procurement and operating costs.• Led crews of 15+ people in over 40 balloon launches in various parts of the United States and served as mission control flight director on multiple shifts successfully satisfying internal and external customer requirements.• Led the development of procedures for hydrogen lift gas operations and launch execution of a hydrogen-filled, heavy-lift, high-altitude balloon with a lift capacity of over 20,000 lbs. • Successfully and safely launched 4 hydrogen-filled, heavy-lift, high altitude balloons with a crew of 20+, bringing the contract to a successful conclusion.

Tucson, Arizona, Us

Responsibilities: Provide oversight, guidance and review of all CFD simulations as Lead CFD Engineer. Execute and manage SBIR and NASA-funded engineering projects. Support business development proposal activities. • Lead CFD Engineer: Managed and performed CFD analyses of multi-species ventilation flow for multiple projects using ANSYS CFX in support of the Orion CEV (Apollo-style space shuttle replacement) and the Constellation space suit system programs. Regular direct technical exchanges with the prime contractors (Lockheed Martin and Oceaneering).• IPT management of Orion hardware projects: Developed the winning proposal and budget to design, build, and test FLO1, a flight unit to measure flow rate and pressure of coolant and served as Deputy IPT Lead for Orion Tubing program.• SBIR Project Lead for 'Acid Scrubber': a 6 month NASA SBIR Phase I project established to explore an advanced technology to extract water from lunar regolith in support of the in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) initiative; Principal Investigator for Phase II. • SBIR Project Lead/Principal Investigator for ‘Ionomer Water Processor’: a 6 month NASA SBIR Phase I project established to explore an advanced technology to extract water from wastewater using Nafion. Proposal lead and lead author of winning Phase II ($750K) proposal.• Lead Engineer of the Flight Vehicle and Launch subsystems for the StratEx High-Altitude Balloon Program: Directed and managed the development of the flight vehicle, launch system, and launch procedures for the StratEx program contributing to the successful completion of the program. • StratEx Launch Director: Directed all balloon launch operations; successfully launched eight high altitude balloons, culminating in the record-breaking 135,890 ft jump.

Hanover, Nh, Us

Responsibilities: Perform engineering research and development activities for DOD funded projects. • Perform numerical analyses and experimental work to support the development of thermal batteries for defense applications and to further the commercialization of the pulsed GMAW welding process for titanium. COMSOL was used to model thermal and structural components of thermal batteries. A National Instruments DAQ system was used to monitor current, voltage, and high speed video of the pulsed GMAW process in support of expanding the use of Titanium in manufacturing.

Canonsburg, Pa, Us

Responsibilities: Develop training materials and perform on and off-site customer training; Develop, sell, and execute CFD consulting projects for the aerospace, power, environmental, and healthcare industries.• Performed on and off-site training of Fluent CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software (preprocessor, solver, and post-processing). Developed training and marketing material. Provided support for University clients. • Proposed, managed, and executed 100+ CFD consulting projects ($10k - $200k) for the aerospace, power, environmental, and healthcare industries, often resulting in expanded or new software license sales. Interfaced directly with commercial and government clients (CFD users and non-users) to define and cost the problems and to provide regular updates along with a final presentation and report. Projects included coal fired furnaces, waste incinerators, external supersonic and subsonic missiles, nuclear reactor dryer flow, wastewater treatment reactors, and pharmaceutical bioreactors. Required a working knowledge of multiphase flow modeling, reacting flows, heat transfer with radiation, particle flow modeling, and turbulent and compressible flow modeling and ability to communicate with resident subject matter experts. • Provided on-site CFD analysis support on the fumigation cleanup process of the Brentwood Post Office and Hart Senate Office Buildings in D.C., both of which were subjects of the 2001 Anthrax attacks.

Burlington, Vermont, Us

Responsible for teaching undergraduate mechanical engineering Thermodynamics I and II, Fluid Mechanics, and Junior and Senior Lab.

Responsibilities: Perform engineering research and development activities for DOE and internally funded projects. • Studied the effect of reactant air flow rate and distribution scheme on PEM fuel cell water management and implemented results. Developed 3D thermal model to predict temperature distribution in PEM fuel cells. Researched materials of construction and manufacturing-related issues. • Developed in-house thermodynamic process analysis model of 75 kW fuel-cell-based power plant system.• R&D support for the propulsion subsystem of a fuel-cell/battery powered transit bus. Developed system controller energy management algorithm. Developed LabView software for battery testing. Conducted battery performance tests and data analysis for battery selection. Designed and fabricated propulsion system high-voltage distribution unit.

Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering

Bs, Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering