Biography

Space exploration brings researchers from different countries and backgrounds together in pursuit of a common goal to benefit humanity. My exploration training started in my parents' automotive shop, where I learned how to weld, use a lathe, cut metal with plasma, change oil, fix a tire, and drive fast cars. I grew up around the smell of engines and watching Star Trek with my family - space exploration was my natural path.

I received my interdisciplinary PhD in Exploration Systems Design from Arizona State University in Tempe, with an emphasis on nuclear instrumentation design for planetary applications and payload systems engineering. I did my post-doc at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO, with an emphasis on space radiation and heliophysics, with additional work in systems engineering on particle detection systems. I spent two years as a senior systems engineer working on heliophysics payloads at the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric Space Physics, in Boulder, CO, with opportunities to work on NASA and NOAA programs. I spent a year as a small sat senior systems engineer at Spire Global in Boulder, CO, and had the opportunity to work with the Canadian Space Agency. Prior to graduate school I worked as a nuclear engineer/physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.