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Professional

I'm a Senior Engineer at the RAND Corporation, a national policy think tank. Most of my projects are in support of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, and other federal organizations; see my RAND profile page for more details. Sometimes I also get to travel to interesting places.

Prior to this, I worked at the Georgia Institute of Technology, as a research engineer in the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL). My focus there was in the area of advanced systems design, including:
  • Design methodologies and design team performance
  • Next-generation access-to-space vehicles
  • System-level design space exploration
  • Computer-based environments for collaborative interdisciplinary design

As the 2006/2007 Postdoctoral Fellow of Georgia Tech's Sam Nunn Security Program, I worked on additional projects in the area of national security policy, critical infrastructure protection and homeland security.

I also have background in some of the human-related aspects of spaceflight:
  • Crew performance and integration
  • Life support
  • Medical aspects and safety
  • Human Factors
  • Astronaut selection
  • Fully immersive simulation of manned planetary exploration missions
  • How these areas influence - and are influenced by - the top-level systems design process
As part of my dissertation research, I combined these and other elements into an interdisciplinary systems design methodology that was taught to graduate students of engineering and architecture through a series of team-centered, hands-on, international “Space Station Design Workshops” (SSDW). Workshops that I helped organize and direct took place at the University of Stuttgart, the European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC), and the International Space University (ISU).

For my current resume, see my LinkedIn profile. Most of my publications are available for download here.