About Me
I'm a robotics software engineer with a passion for sports and the great outdoors.
Work Experience
Currently I'm a robotics software engineer at NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center. My team is part of the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office which is focused on means to robotically service spacecraft while in orbit. My team's role in this project is two-fold. First, we provide ground testing for state of the art robotic technologies as we prepare to send them to space. Second, we research and demonstrate new hopeful technologies that could advance the state of the art in robotic servicing.
GSFC Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office
Prior to my work at NASA Goddard, I worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). At NIST, my research focused on bringing IT and automation to the construction industry in order to enhance productivity. The idea is to bring a wave of technology advancements to the construction industry similar to what has been done in other industries like manufacturing.
As a graduate student I worked at the University of Maryland's Space Systems Laboratory. There I worked on a project funded by NASA’s Astrobiology Science and Technology Experiment Program (ASTEP). We teamed with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to develop technologies to autonomously sample hydrothermal vent material 5000 meters underwater at the Gakkel Ridge.
Education
In 2003 I received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park. In 2007 I received a M.S. in Aerospace Engineering also from the University of Maryland.
Favorite Quotations
My favorite quote right now is from Jony Ive on the process of creating:
"And you can have this barely formed thought and then suddenly something does actually exist. Then that thought that is so tentative and so fragile normally becomes a tentative discussion and you're trying to bring body to the thought with words. Generally what happens is that's a conversation between a couple of people and is exclusive. And then you start to draw to try to describe and develop this fragile idea. Then a remarkable thing happens at the time you make the first object, the time that you actually give form and dimension to the idea. In the whole process, that's the one point where the transition is the most dramatic and suddenly you can involve multiple people. It brings focus and it can galvanise a group of people, which is enormously powerful."