Nicholas Barbara Email & Phone Number

Australia

I tutor a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Sydney:1. AMME5520: Advanced Control and Optimisation (2022 - 2024)A final-year undergraduate/early postgraduate engineering course covering path planning, optimal control, and estimation in robotic systems.2. AERO2705: Space Engineering 1 (2023)A second-year undergraduate engineering course on the fundamentals of orbital mechanics, space mission analysis, and spacecraft design.3. BUSS6002: Data Science in Business (2021 - 2023)A first-year Master’s course in which students learn to use Python for business analytics and predictive modelling including clustering, regression, and optimisation.4. QBUS1040: Foundations of Business Analytics (2024)A first-year undergraduate course teaching students the fundamentals of linear algebra and its use in regression and optimisation.5. QBUS6600: Data Analytics for Business Capstone (2022)A final-year Master's course where students embark on a semester-long data analysis project for a company to identify and present interesting trends and predictions in their data.

Completed my undergraduate thesis at Nearmap as part of the 2020 Engineering Sydney Industry Placement Scholarship (ESIPS). My thesis was on the use of active structural vibration control in high-precision stabilisation platforms for aerial imagery. I designed and evaluated vibration controllers in simulation and on an experimental test-bed I designed and built.

Sydney, Australia

Lead the Flight Analysis team for USYD Rocketry Team’s high-power sounding rockets Silvereye and Firetail. I modelled and analysed flight trajectory data, worked closely with other subsystem leads to design and improve our rockets, and mentored junior engineering students in my team to help improve their technical and communication skills. Silvereye placed 1st in the 10,000 ft COTS category at the 2019 Spaceport America Cup, and Firetail placed 1st in the 30,000 ft COTS category at the 2020 Australian Universities Rocketry Competition.

Sydney, Australia

Interned at Saber Astronautics as part of the 2019/20 Defence Industry Internship Program. I developed spacecraft mission control software for Saber, including a genetic algorithm for optimal satellite communications scheduling, and a link budget analysis tool for spacecraft mission design.

Sydney, Australia

Worked in a research team at the University of Sydney to design, test and build a next-generation, low-cost star tracker system for attitude determination of small satellites. Paper published in 18th Australian Space Research Conference proceedings.

Sydney, Australia

Developed a stellar classification algorithm that applies highly-comparative time-series analysis techniques to big-data variable star classification. This involved a combination of statistical analysis, supervised machine learning, and Fourier analysis of time series data. Presented as a guest speaker at the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées in Toulouse, and co-supervised a 2nd-year student at USYD who continued this work in Semester 1 of 2019.

Toulouse Area, France

Interned at ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse as part of the 2018 Nicolas Baudin Travel Grant in the framework of the Internship in France initiative, under the guidance of Airbus Defence and Space. I worked on the mission design and systems-level analysis of an advanced servicing spacecraft operating in Geostationary Orbit with electric propulsion.

Sydney, Australia

Worked as a part-time editor at Cambridge HOTmaths, developing and editing online mathematical content for primary and high school students across Australia and the United States.

Sydney, Australia

Tutored two groups of Year 12 students in HSC English (Advanced) at Sydney Grammar School in preparation for their Higher School Certificate.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd

In my final PhD year at the Australian Centre for Robotics (ACFR). Thesis title: Robust Reinforcement Learning for Robotic Systems.

B Aeronautical Engineering (Honours)/B Science (Advanced), Honours Class I And The University Medal

Majors in Space Engineering, Advanced Physics, and Mathematics.

Higher School Certificate

Higher School Certificate courses: English Advanced, Mathematics Extension 2, Mathematics Extension 1, Physics, Chemistry, French.