Keyur Patel

Director for Astronomy and Physics, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab: Keyur Patel is currently the Director for Astronomy and Physics at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and represents the Directorate as a member of JPL’s Executive Council. He is responsible for all aspects of research, technology, development and operations, program planning, formulation and development, and execution of the Directorate’s missions. He has held positions as the Deputy Director for Planetary Science, Director for the Interplanetary Directorate, Deputy Director for Office of Safety and Mission Success. As Project Manager for Dawn, he shepherded the mission through its launch to orbit and study the protoplanets Vesta and Ceres. He served as Deputy Project Manager and Chief Engineer for the Deep Impact mission, helping to ensure the spacecraft’s successful encounter with comet Tempel 1.

Alex Austin

Systems Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Alex Austin is a Systems Engineer in the Advanced Design Engineering group at JPL, where he works on new mission concept formulation and proposals in all areas of space exploration. He is the Lead Engineer for Team Xc, JPL’s concurrent engineering design team for CubeSat and SmallSat missions. His recent work has also focused on innovative technologies for performing planetary science with SmallSats. He received a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering and a master’s in Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Clara O'Farrell

Guidance and Control Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Clara O’Farrell is an engineer in the Entry, Descent, and Landing Guidance and Control Systems Group at JPL. She received a PhD in Control and Dynamical Systems from Caltech in 2013, and a BSE in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 2008. Since joining JPL in 2013, she has worked on the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerators and Mars 2020 projects. She is the recipient of JPL's Charles Elachi Award and the NASA Early Career Exceptional Public Achievement Medal.

Nicole Fondse

Systems Director, Aerospace Corporation: Nicole Fondse earned her B. S. in Electrical Engineering and B. S. in Biomedical Engineering from CSU Long Beach in 2005. Upon graduation she joined Northrop Grumman Space Technology. She then earned her M. S. in Systems Engineering and MBA from Loyola Marymount University in 2011. In 2020, Mrs. Fondse transitioned to The Aerospace Corporation where she leads a team supporting the DoD Space Test Program whose responsibility is to provide access to space for military relevant science and technology experiments.

Joseph Bowkett

Robotics Technologist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Joseph Bowkett, Ph.D. is a Group Lead and Robotics Technologist researcher in the Mobility & Robotics Systems section of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His past work on autonomous robotic manipulation includes convoy path clearing for the Army Research Laboratory's "Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance", drilling and sample collection for the proposed Europa Lander mission, mobility in complex terrains in the Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS) research task, and others. Joseph's current work involves developing novel 'in-contact manipulation' behaviors for the MSR Sample Return Lander's "Sample Transfer System" that will place each sample tube into the Mars Ascent Vehicle.

Elena Adams

Systems Engineer, Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory: Elena Adams is a Principal Staff at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. She received a B.S. from University of Virginia; an M.S. and Ph.D., and an M.E. from the University of Michigan. Since joining APL in 2008, she worked on Van Allen Probes, ExoMars MOMA, Europa Clipper, Parker Solar Probe, and most recently led the DART team as a Mission and Spacecraft Systems Engineer. She is currently the Dragonfly Deputy Mission Systems Engineer. She has worked with NOAA and Planetary Defense Coordination Office on a number of studies for future mission architectures and survey approaches, and on a variety of instrument and spacecraft technologies. She won NASA grants for developing technology for future space exploration, including a hopping lander to explore asteroids and a sampling system for collecting water from Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. She participates on multiple flight project standing review boards.

Terry Hurford

Scientist, : Planetary scientist

Ryan Woolley

Mission Design Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Ryan Woolley is a mission design engineer in the Inner Planet Mission Analysis group at JPL. His focus has primarily been on early mission formulation for the Mars Exploration Program. This includes mission concept studies, systems engineering, propulsion systems, low-thrust trajectories and optimization, mission design tools, and launch vehicle performance. He has worked on nearly all aspects of the Mars Sample Return campaign and has recently begun focusing on small missions to Mars. He received a B.S. in Physics-Astronomy from Brigham Young University, an M.S. in Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado. He has been at JPL since 2005.

Ondrej Ploc

Senior researcher, Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences: Ondrej Ploc is a senior researcher at the Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Department of Radiation Dosimetry in the group “Mixed radiation fields” focusing on the detection and dosimetry of high energy radiation with various applications in the research of new atmospheric phenomena, medicine, civil aviation, and in space. He graduated in nuclear engineering from the Czech Technical University in Prague where he also obtained his Ph.D. in 2009. He spent two years of a postdoc fellowship in Japan, Chiba, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, and a one-year postdoc fellowship in Sweden, Göteborg, Chalmers University of Technology. He is a member of ISO/TC85/SC2 WG21 Dosimetry for Exposures to Cosmic Radiation in Civilian Aircraft. He is the PI of the Research Center of Cosmic Rays and Radiation Events in the Atmosphere and several other projects focused on cosmic rays and atmospheric radiation detection and dosimetry at high-altitude observatories, aircraft, and spacecraft. He is a member of the EURADOS group, involved mostly in WG11 as a leader of Task 8 (Radiation dose induced by natural electric discharge in the atmosphere).

Douglas Mehoke

Retired - Temp on Call, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL): Mr. Douglas Mehoke is the Group Supervisor of the Mechanical Systems Group in the Space Department at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He has worked in the field of spacecraft technology and thermal design for over 30 years, and has a wide background in the fields of heat transfer and fluid mechanics. He received a BS from the University of California in 1980, and a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford in 1982. He is presently leading the dust survivability efforts on PSP and Europa Clipper. He was the Lead Engineer for the Thermal Protection System and Dust Mitigation efforts of the Solar Probe Plus mission. He has been the Lead Thermal Engineer on the Polar Bear, MSX, CONTOUR, and New Horizons spacecraft. He has also worked on a variety of scientific instrument including Cassini-MIMI and MRO-CRISM.

Michael Werth

Senior Electrophysics Engineer / Scientist, Boeing Company: Michael Werth received a BS in Physics from the University of Arizona in 2007 and a Ph.D. in Physics from UC Irvine in 2012. Most of his undergraduate and graduate career was spent at CERN working with the Large Hadron Collider’s ATLAS Detector searching for fourth generation quarks and working with data acquisition systems. Now Michael is a Boeing system engineer and imaging scientist with research interests that include deep learning, high-performance computing, and imaging through turbulence.

Markus Wilde

Senior Rendezvous and Proximity Operations Engineer, Blue Origin: Markus Wilde received his M.S. (2008) and Ph.D. (2012) in Aerospace Engineering from Technical University Munich, Germany. His Ph.D. research was focused on improving the performance of ground operators in teleoperated rendezvous and docking with non-cooperative client objects. Markus expanded upon this topic during his PostDoc at the Naval Postgraduate School Spacecraft Robotics Laboratory, investigating autonomous GNC algorithms and the designing robotic manipulators for capture and berthing on an air-bearing spacecraft dynamics testbed. In 2014, he joined the Aerospace Engineering faculty at Florida Institute of Technology, where he established the Orbital Robotic Interaction, On-orbit servicing, and Navigation (ORION) hardware-in-the-loop simulation facility. Markus’ teaching and research at Florida Tech was principally focused on spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations, but also grew to include microgravity flight experiments and flight testing of unmanned aerial vehicles and general aviation aircraft. In 2022, Markus joined the Advanced Development Programs Flight Sciences Section at Blue Origin.

Glenn Hopkins

Principal Research Engineer, Georgia Tech Research Institute: GTRI Fellow and Chief Engineer of the Antenna Systems Division of the GTRI Sensors and Electromagnetic Applications Laboratory, specializing in array antenna technologies. Interests include phased arrays, wide bandwidth antennas, digital beam forming and RF subsystems.

Chris Rose

Chief Technology Office - Antenna Systems, Viasat: Working primarily in the area of earth-observation and ISR ground-terminal development with parabolic antennas, analog and digital phased array antennas, and high-bandwidth digital modems.

James Hoffman

Vice President of Engineering, Kinemetrics: Quite possibly the only person on LinkedIn who isn’t a “results-orientated team player with excellent interpersonal skills.”

Melissa Soriano

Payload Systems Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Melissa Soriano is a systems engineer in the Flight Communications Section at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She developed real-time and high performance software for over a decade for the Deep Space Network, including open loop receivers used for radio science and radio astronomy. Melissa is currently the X-band telecom systems engineering lead on the Mars Sample Retrieval Lander Mission and telecom systems engineering lead on the Europa Clipper Flight Systems Engineering Team. She has a BS from Caltech (double major in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Business Economics and Management) and an MS from George Mason University.

Shervin Shambayati

Senior Systems Engineering, Aerospace Corporation: Senior Staff at Aerospace Corporation, Communications Architecture Department. Previously, Senior Systems Engineering Specialist, SSL and the Telecommunications Lead for NASA Restore-L program.Former member of Telecommunications Architecture group, JPL. Former Principal Investigator, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Ka-band Demonstration, JPL. BS in Applied Mathematics and Engineering, Cal State University, Northridge. MSEE and PhD, UCLA.

Shervin Shambayati

Senior Systems Engineering, Aerospace Corporation: Senior Staff at Aerospace Corporation, Communications Architecture Department. Previously, Senior Systems Engineering Specialist, SSL and the Telecommunications Lead for NASA Restore-L program.Former member of Telecommunications Architecture group, JPL. Former Principal Investigator, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Ka-band Demonstration, JPL. BS in Applied Mathematics and Engineering, Cal State University, Northridge. MSEE and PhD, UCLA.

Tommaso Rossi

Eng., University of Rome Tor Vergata: Tommaso Rossi is an Assistant Professor of Digital Signal Processing, Signals Processing for Biomedical Applications and Image and Video Compression at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata." His research activity is focused on EHF (Extremely High Frequency) and UWB (Ultra-Wideband) Satellite and Terrestrial Communication Systems, Digital Beamforming applied to RF Imaging and Telecommunication Systems, DSP for Biomedical Application and Image Processing. He is currently responsible for the Italian Space Agency Q/V-band satellite communication experimets performed through the Alphasat "Aldo Paraboni" P/L.

David Copeland

Principal Professional Staff, Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory: David Copeland is a member of the Principal Professional Staff of the Space Exploration Sector at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He is currently the telecommunications flight systems engineer for NASA's Dragonfly mission to Titan. Mr. Copeland has over 35 years' experience in microwave and optical communications. Mr. Copeland received his B.S. from Virginia Tech in 1985 and M.S. from the University of Maryland in 1997, both in Electrical Engineering.

Mazen Shihabi

Technical Group Supervisor, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Mazen Shihabi is the technical group supervisor of the Communications Architecture & Operations Group of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the task manager & operation lead for MRO UHF radio. Prior JPL assignments included modem design and modulation algorithm development. Prior to JPL, he worked for 10 years in aerospace, cellular telecommunications, and remote patient monitoring. Dr. Shihabi is a senior member of IEEE and has published several technical papers and holds several patents related to synchronization algorithms, interference mitigation and physiological alarm notification systems. He received a BS and MS from University of Southern California, and PhD from University of California at Irvine, all in Electrical engineering. Dr. Shihabi has also taught digital signal processing and communications courses at UCI Extension.

E. Jay Wyatt

Program Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: E. Jay Wyatt currently manages the Space Networking and Mission Automation Program Office within the Interplanetary Network Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Jay Wyatt has over 30 years of NASA experience on a wide range of assignments with an emphasis on technology developments for mission communication systems, ground data systems, trajectory design & navigation, autonomy development, and mission architecture and design for a variety of mission types including deep space fleets and constellations. His current focus is in leading JPL activities in Disruption Tolerant Networking, automation for NASA’s Deep Space Network, technology developments for NASA's Advanced Multi-mission Operations System, interplanetary CubeSat communication systems, and development of new flight and ground capabilities needed to implement adaptive, on-demand operations to improve how deep space missions are conducted.

Alessandra Babuscia

Telecommunication Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Alessandra Babuscia received a B.S. and a S.M. in Communication Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy in 2005 and 2007 respectively. She received her Ph.D. (2012) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she worked as research assistant and teaching assistant in Space System Laboratory. She has developed communication system for different university missions (CASTOR, ExoPlanet, TerSat, Rexis, TALARIS). She has worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory as summer researcher in Communication Architecture Research Group. Her research interests are in the fields of: communication technologies for small and micro satellite platforms, communication architecture design, statistical risk estimation, expert elicitation, mission scheduling and planning. She was awarded Amelia Earhart Fellows (years 2010 and 2011), Gordon Engineering Leadership Fellows (2010 and 2011), Teaching Assistant Award for MIT AeroAstro Department (2010), Top graduate in B.S program (2005) and in S.M. program (2007) at Politecnico di Milano. She is currently Postdoctoral Research Associate at MIT.

Marc Sanchez Net

Telecommunications Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Marc Sanchez Net is a telecommunications engineer in the Communication Architectures and Research Section at JPL. His research interests include design of space communication systems in challenged environments such as the surface of the Moon or Mars, optical communications, and delay tolerant networking. Marc received his PhD in 2017 from MIT, and holds degrees in both telecommunications and industrial engineering by the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona. He also received the NASA Early Career Award in 2020.

Claudio Sacchi

Associate professor, University of Trento: Dr. Claudio Sacchi is associate professor at the University of Trento (Italy). His main research interests are in satellite communications and wireless broadband communications. He is authors of more than 120 papers published in international journals and conferences. He is Senior Member of IEEE, member of IEEE Comsoc and IEEE AES society. He ie the chair of the AESS "Glue Technologies for Space Systems" technical panel.

Claudio Sacchi

Associate professor, University of Trento: Dr. Claudio Sacchi is associate professor at the University of Trento (Italy). His main research interests are in satellite communications and wireless broadband communications. He is authors of more than 120 papers published in international journals and conferences. He is Senior Member of IEEE, member of IEEE Comsoc and IEEE AES society. He ie the chair of the AESS "Glue Technologies for Space Systems" technical panel.

Genshe Chen

CTO, Intelligent Fusion Technology, Inc.: Dr. Chen received a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering, and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, in 1989, 1991 and 1994, respectively, all from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China. He is the chief technology officer at IFT and provides strategic guidance for government services and commercial solutions.

Lin Yi

Technical Group Supervisor, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology: Dr. Lin Yi is a technologist and group supervisor at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Areas of interest: precision frequency, timing and applications, RF and optical technologies in communications, navigation and radio/optical science applications. Dr. Yi has published more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers.

John Enright

Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University: John Enright is a Professor in Department of Aerospace Engineering at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). His primary research interests concern the development of attitude sensors for spacecraft, optical navigation, and mobile robotics.

Dylan Hasson

General Engineer, Volpe National Transportation Systems Center: Dylan Hasson is a General Engineer in the Air Traffic Management Systems Division at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) in Cambridge, MA. The ATMS division blends air traffic operations research, information technology, computer science, and engineering expertise focused on developing and deploying systems that help the air transportation enterprise to operate safely and efficiently. Mr. Hasson is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he received a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering. He is also a private pilot.

Krishna Sampigethaya

Department Chair and Associate Professor, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University: Krishna Sampigethaya is currently Chair and Associate Professor in the Cyber Intelligence and Security Department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, AZ. The department is a DHS/NSA NCAE-C, ABET-Cyber, and a CYBERCOM AEN member. He was the first Associate Director for cyber security at the United Technologies Research Center (2017-2018) and the first Associate Technical Fellow for aviation cyber-physical security at The Boeing Company (2007-2014). He was an Assistant Director for telecommunications program at the University of Maryland ('14-'15). He has introduced cyber security tracks at AIAA, IEEE, and SAE aerospace conferences (2009-present). He has won Best Paper of Session awards at the AIAA/IEEE DASC (2010, 2012), ASEI Engineer of the Year Award (2013), ASEI Corporate Engineering Excellence Award (2013), Best Instructor Award at UMD (2015), and Best Paper awards at I-CNS conference (2018). He has delivered over 16 keynotes and holds over 16 US patents.

Benjamin Donitz

Systems Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Benjamin P. S. Donitz received his Bachelor and Masters degrees in Aerospace and Space Engineering, respectively, from The University of Michigan. He now works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Project System Engineering and Formulation section where he is involved with the development of early-phase mission concepts. Since joining JPL in 2019, Benjamin has worked on several mission concepts and studies evaluating the feasibility of sending dedicated spacecraft to interstellar objects and long period comets. He also works on a variety of other mission and mission concepts including Mars Sample Return and with JPL’s concurrent design and engineering teams, Team-X and A-Team.

Young Lee

Technical Group Supervisor and Project Support Lead, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Ms. Young Lee is the Advanced Design Engineering Technical Group Supervisor and Project Support Lead in the Project Systems Engineering and Formulation Section in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is a member of the NASA’s Small Satellite Coordination Group (SSCG), representing JPL. Over the last 15 years, she has held many diverse leadership positions in NASA programs and projects establishing strategic and collaborative working relationships across many organizations within NASA, including its domestic and international partners. In addition, she has over twenty years of experience in the development and deployment of operations systems for deep space missions, focusing on operations cost reduction, user-productivity improvements and increased information throughput to support many NASA deep space missions. She has M.S. in Management of Information Systems from Claremont Graduate University in California.

Rashmi Shah

Associate Directorate Technologist for Earth Science and Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology: Interests include technology development, Small Satellites implementation, early concept developments, and science system engineering. Research expertise are in the area of microwave remote sensing, electromagnetic scattering, remote sensing using signals of opportunity reflectometry and microwave remote sensing instrument development.

Michael Mclelland

Vice President, Space Systems Division, Southwest Research Institute: Michael McLelland leads Southwest Research Institute’s Space Systems Division, which develops next-generation space missions, systems and enabling technologies to support fundamental space science, national security and commercial applications. Mr. McLelland has over 32 years engineering and management expertise in spacecraft constellations, small satellites, spacecraft avionics, power systems, science payloads and autonomous high-altitude airships. He has played key roles in the development of over 24 spaceflight systems.

Rashmi Shah

Associate Directorate Technologist for Earth Science and Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology: Interests include technology development, Small Satellites implementation, early concept developments, and science system engineering. Research expertise are in the area of microwave remote sensing, electromagnetic scattering, remote sensing using signals of opportunity reflectometry and microwave remote sensing instrument development.

Jin S. Kang

Associate Professor, U.S. Naval Academy: Dr. Jin S. Kang is an Associate Professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the United States Naval Academy, and serves as the Director of the Naval Academy Small Satellite Program. His main research area is in small satellite technology development and was involved in development of four micro-satellites and numerous CubeSat satellites. He received his B.S. from the University of Michigan, M.S. from Stanford University, and Ph.D. from Korea Aerospace University (KAU) in Aerospace Engineering. After working for General Electric for two years, Kang taught at Korea Air Force Academy, KAU, and Drexel University before joining the Naval Academy faculty.

John Samson

Research Affiliate / Aerospace Consultantant, Morehead State University : Dr. Samson has 50+ years experience in onboard processing for space and airborne applications. More than 50 publications in the area of onboard processing systems and architectures. Senior Member IEEE, Associate Fellow AIAA. Graduate of Illinois Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of South Florida.

Travis Imken

Systems Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Travis Imken is the Psyche Launch Phase Lead. He previously served as a Deployment Phase Systems Engineer for the InSight Lander and the Project Systems Engineer for the RainCube mission. Travis has worked on Mars Sample Return, ARRM, and the Lunar Flashlight and NEA Scout deep space CubeSats.

Keith Rosette

Deputy Project Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Mr. Rosette is currently the Deputy Project Manager for the Mars Sample Return Capture, Containment, and Return System at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Prior to this role, he was the Deputy Section Manager for the Flight Systems Engineering, Integration and Test Section and was also the Product Delivery Manager for the Sampling and Caching Subsystem of the Mars2020 Perseverance Rover. He started in aerospace in 1991 and has experience in both industry and JPL including hardware development for human spaceflight and spacecraft development for LEO, GEO and interplanetary missions. He earned a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering in 1991 and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1994.

Mohamed Abid

SRL Payload Chief Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory / NASA: Dr. Abid is the Mars Sample Return Payload Chief Engineer. He was the Mars 2020 deputy Mechanical Chief Engineer, M2020 Cruise, Entry, Descent & Landing (CEDL) MSE, and M2020 Anomaly Response Team lead. Prior to that, Dr. Abid was the JPL Mechatronics technical group manager, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission Chief Engineer, the Flight System SE for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, and Project SE on Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM). Dr. Abid received his Ph.D. from the Dept of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering of the University of Southern California (USC). He is a lecturer at USC and the author of the text book “Spacecraft Sensors”, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2005

Robert Magnusson

Professor, University of Texas at Arlington: Robert Magnusson received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is Texas Instruments Distinguished University Chair in Nanoelectronics and Professor of Electrical Engineering at UT Arlington. Current theoretical and experimental research addresses periodic micro- and nanostructures, nanolithography, IR optical components, photonics, nanoelectronics, lasers, and optical bio- and chemical sensors. He has published 500 journal and conference papers and holds 40 patents. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (Optica) and SPIE, a Life Fellow of IEEE, and a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He is Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Resonant Sensors Incorporated, a company that provides next-generation optical sensor systems for pharmaceutical and biotech customers for biomedical diagnostics including Covid-19. He is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Tiwaz Technologies with aim to develop new IR optical component technology.

Dan Harris

Causal AI Architect, Northrop Grumman Corporation: Dan Harris is a Northrop Grumman Staff System Engineer who currently works on independent research and development. He is a 2008 Naval Academy graduate and earned his Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona in 2019. Mr. Harris has worked on many practical application techniques and algorithm development projects involving machine learning and artificial intelligence disciplines, and he has produced several original works contributing to the success of many programs and projects. The role he mainly plays in these projects is a causal AI architect, where he leverages invariant, and therefore causal, correlations between inputs and desired outputs to build causal AI systems that consistently perform well after deployment and are robust against many forms and degrees of noise.

Laura Bateman

System Engineer, Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory: Laura Ritter Bateman received her B.A. degree in Mathematics from McDaniel College in 1997 and an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst in 2000. From 2000 to 2006, she worked for Raytheon as a software engineer developing tracking code for the Patriot radar and later as a system engineer on the Missile Defense National Team B (MDNTB) developing tracking algorithms for the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) Command and Control Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) system. Mrs. Bateman currently works as a Chief Engineer for Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Her efforts are focused in the areas of non-kinetics, cognitive communication, tracking, battle management, and sensor resource management.

John Grimes

Scientist, BAE Systems, Inc: John Grimes currently works at BAE Systems Fast Labs in Burlington, MA. He is the direct of space systems research within FAST labs. He previously was the Director of the distributed fusion and resource management and works on multi-domain command and control, data fusion, and autonomy programs. He previously worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 2007-2017 on a wide variety of problems related to space systems and ISR. John recieved a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University (2007) in extragalactic astrophysics. His research was focused on space satellite operations, data analytics, and computational modeling. His particular research areas of expertise are in automated battle management, adversary behavior modeling, predictive tracking, data fusion, and systems analysis. Previously he has also worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of Chicago.

Peter Zulch

Engineer, Air Force Research Laboratory: Engineer, Air Force Research Laboratory. 25 years with AFRL. Interests in multidimensional adaptive signal processing with applications to radar and ELINT. Other interests include multi-modal upstream data fusion. Senior member of the IEEE. Graduate degrees from Clarkson University.

Robert Merl

Electrical Engineer, Los Alamos National Laboratory: Robert Merl received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1992 and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1996. He has been with Los Alamos National Laboratory for 19 years and was previously with Argonne National Laboratory. Rob is the project engineer for the Processing and Communication team in the Intelligence and Space Research Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is also the principal design engineer for several space flight modules currently under development at the laboratory. Rob has 26 years of experience in circuit design. Rob is an instrument rated pilot and a commercial drone pilot.

Michael Epperly

Senior Program Manager, Southwest Research Institute: Senior Program Manager, Space Systems Department, Southwest Research Institute. Manager, Memory Subsystems product line and Program Manager for the Central Instrument Data Processor (CIDP) for the Magnetosphere Multi-Scale Mission (MMS). Formerly, Program Manager for the Mixed-Mode Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (MMASIC) for the Mar Science Laboratory Radiation Assessment Detector (MSL-RAD). BSEE, University of Texas; MSEE, MSCS, and MS in Systems Engineering/Program Management, Johns-Hopkins University.

Eric Rossland

Electronics Engineer, Naval Research Laboratory: Eric Rossland is an employee at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) with over 20 years experience in spacecraft systems engineering. Eric works in the spacecraft systems electrical integration and test section on efforts from robotics, to space sensors, to entire spacecraft, and mission operations. Eric’s most recent technical focus area is space robotics, specifically robotic arm system design, integration, and test. On multiple flight programs, Eric managed teams through the entirety of the project from requirements development, design, hardware and software implementation, integration and test, verification/validation, and spacecraft launch and on-orbit operations. As a subject matter expert in the field of spacecraft electrical and robotic systems integration and test, Eric has been consulted to support internal and external program design reviews.

Peter Wilson

Professor, University of Bath: Professor of Electronic and Systems Engineering, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, UK. Technical Chair, BMAS 2008 and General Chair BMAS 2009, Finance Chair IEEE Design Automation for Power Electronics 2018. Visiting Professor, University of Arkansas, USA. SMIEEE, FIET, FBCS, CEng. >150 Publications and 3 Books.

Mohammad Mojarradi

Manger, Componnent Engineering and Assurance, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Manager, Component Engineering and Assurance, JPL. IC design specialist, expert in mixed-signal/mixed-voltage circuits, sensors, micro-machined electromechanical interface systems for extreme environment of space. Twenty years experience. Twenty-seven patents, forty publications.

Didier Keymeulen

Principal, Member Technical Staff, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Principal, Member technical staff, JPL. Interests in design and implementation of adaptive and intelligent embedded flight systems

John Enright

Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University: John Enright is a Professor in Department of Aerospace Engineering at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). His primary research interests concern the development of attitude sensors for spacecraft, optical navigation, and mobile robotics.

Michael Mclelland

Vice President, Space Systems Division, Southwest Research Institute: Michael McLelland leads Southwest Research Institute’s Space Systems Division, which develops next-generation space missions, systems and enabling technologies to support fundamental space science, national security and commercial applications. Mr. McLelland has over 32 years engineering and management expertise in spacecraft constellations, small satellites, spacecraft avionics, power systems, science payloads and autonomous high-altitude airships. He has played key roles in the development of over 24 spaceflight systems.

Tyler Lovelly

Computer Engineer, Air Force Research Laboratory: Tyler M. Lovelly is the Principal Investigator for Space Computing within the Space Electronics Technology program at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), where his research focuses on advancing on-board computing capabilities for next-generation space systems. His previous experience includes serving as a research group leader at the NSF Center for Space, High-Performance, and Resilient Computing (SHREC), supporting AFRL as a contractor with the Universities Space Research Association, and working for United Space Alliance supporting the NASA Space Shuttle program. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) from the University of Florida, and a faculty title with the Department of ECE at the University of New Mexico.

Mohamed Abid

SRL Payload Chief Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory / NASA: Dr. Abid is the Mars Sample Return Payload Chief Engineer. He was the Mars 2020 deputy Mechanical Chief Engineer, M2020 Cruise, Entry, Descent & Landing (CEDL) MSE, and M2020 Anomaly Response Team lead. Prior to that, Dr. Abid was the JPL Mechatronics technical group manager, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission Chief Engineer, the Flight System SE for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, and Project SE on Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM). Dr. Abid received his Ph.D. from the Dept of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering of the University of Southern California (USC). He is a lecturer at USC and the author of the text book “Spacecraft Sensors”, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2005

John Guidi

Deputy Director, Advanced Exploration Systems, HEOMD, NASA: John Guidi is a Deputy Director of the Advanced Exploration Division with NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. John joined NASA in 1987 at Kennedy Space Center with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering while later receiving a master’s degree in Space Systems in 1992 and masters in Engineering Management, 1994. He served various positions within Shuttle Operations at KSC, including Shuttle Test Director, Launch Manager, Assistant Launch Director and Shuttle Launch and Landing Division Chief. He moved to NASA headquarters/DC in 2005 as Operations Project Manager for the newly formulated Constellation Program and later as Ground & Mission Ops Program Executive. From February 2007 to February 2011, John served as Deputy Director, ESMD Strategic Analysis Division which provides integrated technical and management planning across ESMD and later HEOMD for the exploration architecture and HEO’s other Programs including international partnerships, science integration and human spaceflight architecture planning and analysis.

Erica Rodgers

Senior Analyst, NASA - Headquarters: Dr. Erica Rodgers is a senior analyst within NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy. Rodgers leads studies of Agency and National importance to provide data- and evidence-driven technology, policy, and strategy advice to NASA leadership. Rodgers leads the Science and Technology Partnership Forum and establishes government-wide collaboration frameworks to influence portfolios across U.S. government space agencies. Rodgers previously served as an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center, where she performed systems analysis of Mars exploration architectures. Prior to joining NASA, Rodgers performed research of solar X-rays and their impact on Earth’s upper atmosphere and of dust grain environments surrounding forming stars and developed and launched science instrumentation. While performing research, Rodgers taught astronomy and astrophysics at several colleges and universities and worked in the aerospace industry in systems engineering and satellite operations. Rodgers received her PhD in space physics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and her BS and MS in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Randy Williams

Systems Director, The Aerospace Corporation: Randy Williams earned an M.S. and a B.S in Aero-Sciences and Mechanical Engineering, respectively, from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). He's held several positions at The Aerospace Corporation after initial hire in 1987 in the Aerophysics Laboratory. He worked in the Propulsion Department on satellite propulsion systems for Milstar, DMSP, and STP programs. He transferred to the Medium Launch Vehicle Program Office. He led several multi-disciplinary teams tasked with resolving significant technical issues the Atlas II/III/V and Delta II launch vehicles. He began work on the Space Shuttle Return-to-Flight mission, characterizing the External Tank foam debris risk to the Space Shuttle Program. In 2007, he provided system engineering leadership and lead development of induced flight environments for NASA’s successful Ares I-X test flight project, in addition to supporting other Constellation projects, for which he received several NASA and corporate awards. He currently serves as a Systems Director in Civil and Commercial Launch Projects Subdivision of the Launch Systems Division, where he serves as the primary focal point for all civil launch-related activities within Launch Program Operations.

Kevin Duda

Senior Program Manager, Space Systems, The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.: Kevin Duda is a Senior Program Manager and Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the Space Systems Program Office at The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT.

Torin Clark

Associate Professor, University of Colorado-Boulder: Torin Clark, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder in the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences department and Biomedical Engineering program. He is a principal investigator in the Bioastronautics Laboratory and a faculty affiliate of BioServe Space Technologies. Prior to joining CU-Boulder in 2015, he was a National Space Biomedical Research Institute post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. He completed his Masters and PhD in the Man-Vehicle Laboratory (now the Human Systems Laboratory) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his BS in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado. His research is focused on the challenges that human operators face in complex aerospace environments. Specifically, he focuses on astronaut biomedical issues, space human factors, human sensorimotor/vestibular function and adaptation, interaction of human-autonomous and human-robotic systems, trust in autonomous systems, mathematical models of spatial orientation perception, and human-in-the-loop experiments.

Alexander Eremenko

Mechanical Systems Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Alexander Eremenko. I received Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Moscow Aviation Institute, Moscow, USSR (Russia) in 1984. I previously worked for Lavochkin Science & Production Association, Moscow, Russia for 11 years developing a variety of the planetary and astrophysical missions. For the last 16 years I've been working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory developing a variety of deep space missions/programs including Ice&Fire, Solar Probe, Europa, Pluto, Mars Exploration Rover, Mars Science Laboratory, Aquarius, SMAP, Europa Clipper. I am currently Mars Sample Retrieval Lander pre-Project Flight System Chief Engineer.

Richard Hofer

Supervisor, Electric Propulsion, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Richard R. Hofer is a Principal Engineer and the Supervisor of the Electric Propulsion Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He received the B.S.E. degree in mechanical engineering and the B.S.E., M.S.E, and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 1998, 1998, 2000, and 2004, respectively. Since joining JPL in 2005, his work has focused on the development and qualification of Hall thrusters for deep space missions. In recognition of these efforts, he received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, the JPL Lew Allen Award for Excellence, and the AIAA Electric Propulsion Outstanding Technical Achievement Award. Dr. Hofer is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, the Chair of the AIAA Electric Propulsion Technical Committee, and on the Board of Directors of the Electric Rocket Propulsion Society. He has been awarded 9 patents and authored over 180 technical publications in electric propulsion.

Concha Reid

Program Manager, National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Concha Reid is the Deputy Chief of the Space Science Project Office at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). In this role she manages the space science project portfolio at GRC and ensures the achievement of space science project objectives. Ms. Reid is the former Deputy Program Manager for the Radioisotope Power Systems Program, which provides radioisotope power and heating for NASA missions and advances the technology for achievement of greater science objectives, particularly to dark, cold lunar and planetary locations and into deep space. Previously, Ms. Reid negotiated and managed bilateral exchange agreements between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) for Orion’s European Service Module (ESM). She led joint NASA-ESA reviews for the completion of ESM integration activities in Europe for NASA, coordinated the delivery of the ESMs for Artemis I and II from Europe to Kennedy Space Center, and led the review to approve the mating of the Orion Crew and Service Module with the ESM. Ms. Reid also formerly served as a battery and energy storage specialist in the GRC Power Division. Ms. Reid holds a BS in electrical engineering from Louisiana State University and an MS in electrical engineering with emphasis on power from Virginia Tech.

Ashley Karp

Mars Launch Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Dr. Karp is the SRL Mars Launch Manager as part of a potential Mars Sample Return. She has been the PI for JPL’s Hybrid Propulsion Test Facility. She is the former Chair of the AIAA Hybrid Rocket Propulsion Technical Committee. She earned a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University in 2012. and a B.A. in Astrophysics, Physics and Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005. She has worked on the Mars 2020 propulsion system and has been involved with many mission concept studies

Will Goins

Sr. Principal Electronics Engineer, Ierus Technologies : Sr. Principal Electronics Engineer with Ierus Technologies in Huntsville AL, USA. Previously he held research and design positions with commercial companies supporting aerospace and defense customers. His research interests are in aerospace and electronic systems areas, with specific focus in autonomous vehicles and sensors. He holds a B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering

Fernando Vanegas Alvarez

Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology: I am a Research Fellow in Robotics at Queensland University of Technology with a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Halmstad University and a PhD in Aerial Robotics from QUT. I have developed frameworks for UAV mission planning in GPS-denied environments for navigation, target finding and tracking purposes using machine learning techniques based on reinforcement learning and optimal sequential decision making. My current research interests include motion planning for UAV exploration in GPS-denied and cluttered environments, POMDP, SLAM and Visual Odometry. As part of my research fellow duties, I have beed working as a research fellow for the ARC DP 18 Navigating under the forest canopy and in the urban Jungle and then in 2020 I started working for the ARC DP 20 When every second counts: multi-drone navigation in GPS-denied environments. For the ARC DP 18 project, I designed and integrated multiple prototypes of UAS systems with multiple sensors including, Depth and Stereo, RGB, and Stereo Cameras integrated with an onboard computer for real-time mapping. This project required extensive experimentation and flight testing. I tested Visual Inertial Odometry and SLAM algorithms for UAV navigation in cluttered and GPS-denied environments.

Thomas Fraser

Engineer, Lockheed Martin Corp: Tom began his engineering career with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts: Lowell. He continued education with an MS in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University. Tom currently works in the avionics hardware and software group for Lockheed Martin.

Theodore Tzanetos

Manager, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Team Lead, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Team Lead, Mars Sample Return - Sample Recovery Helicopters Manager, and Supervisor of Aerial Mobility Group. MIT '12 B.S. CS-EE, MIT '13 M.Eng CS-EE.

Fernando Vanegas Alvarez

Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology: I am a Research Fellow in Robotics at Queensland University of Technology with a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Halmstad University and a PhD in Aerial Robotics from QUT. I have developed frameworks for UAV mission planning in GPS-denied environments for navigation, target finding and tracking purposes using machine learning techniques based on reinforcement learning and optimal sequential decision making. My current research interests include motion planning for UAV exploration in GPS-denied and cluttered environments, POMDP, SLAM and Visual Odometry. As part of my research fellow duties, I have beed working as a research fellow for the ARC DP 18 Navigating under the forest canopy and in the urban Jungle and then in 2020 I started working for the ARC DP 20 When every second counts: multi-drone navigation in GPS-denied environments. For the ARC DP 18 project, I designed and integrated multiple prototypes of UAS systems with multiple sensors including, Depth and Stereo, RGB, and Stereo Cameras integrated with an onboard computer for real-time mapping. This project required extensive experimentation and flight testing. I tested Visual Inertial Odometry and SLAM algorithms for UAV navigation in cluttered and GPS-denied environments.

Fernando Vanegas Alvarez

Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology: I am a Research Fellow in Robotics at Queensland University of Technology with a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Halmstad University and a PhD in Aerial Robotics from QUT. I have developed frameworks for UAV mission planning in GPS-denied environments for navigation, target finding and tracking purposes using machine learning techniques based on reinforcement learning and optimal sequential decision making. My current research interests include motion planning for UAV exploration in GPS-denied and cluttered environments, POMDP, SLAM and Visual Odometry. As part of my research fellow duties, I have beed working as a research fellow for the ARC DP 18 Navigating under the forest canopy and in the urban Jungle and then in 2020 I started working for the ARC DP 20 When every second counts: multi-drone navigation in GPS-denied environments. For the ARC DP 18 project, I designed and integrated multiple prototypes of UAS systems with multiple sensors including, Depth and Stereo, RGB, and Stereo Cameras integrated with an onboard computer for real-time mapping. This project required extensive experimentation and flight testing. I tested Visual Inertial Odometry and SLAM algorithms for UAV navigation in cluttered and GPS-denied environments.

Seungwon Lee

Data Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Seungwon Lee is a data scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has over 25 years of experience of research and technology development in computational physics, dynamic systems, statistical data analysis, optimization algorithms, information systems, and high performance computing systems for science and engineering applications. Currently, she is the PI of a NASA ROSES AIST project for developing an ecological projection analytic framework. She is also the PI of a NASA ROSES RDAP project for analyzing Rosetta observation data. In the past, she led several research projects as a PI for the JPL internal Research and Technology Development program and performed innovative research on Earth science data summarization with advanced clustering algorithms, evolutionary optimization methods for spectral retrieval problems and trajectory design, parallel computing for Satellite Orbit Analysis Program. She also contributed to other NASA research projects including the development of a co-location tool for A-Train data and ECMWF outputs, the characterization of cloud properties using NASA’s observational data, development of cloud-related parameterizations for climate models, and the development of a statistical method to quantify the relationships between passive radiometer and active radar measurements for hurricane studies. She is the first author or co-author of over 40 refereed publications.

Ronnie Killough

Director - R&D, Southwest Research Institute: Ronnie Killough is a Program Director in the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). In his thirty years at SwRI, Ronnie has developed software for cruise missile simulators, space shuttle control center systems, and unmanned spacecraft. Until 2014 he was Director of the Communications and Embedded Systems department in which he was responsible for oversight of research and development of network-centric systems, tactical communications systems, cyber security, and high-reliability software. Ronnie returned to his passion for space and served as software systems lead and flight director for the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission which launched in December 2016. He is currently Project Manager for a Heliophysics SMEX mission called Polarimeter to Unify the Corina and Heliosphere (PUNCH), a constellation of four microsatellites that will create 3D images of the solar wind, slated for launch in 2023.

Peter Lehner

Robotics Research Scientist / Engineer, German Aerospace Center (DLR): Peter Lehner is the Mobile Manipulators team lead at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, German Aerospace Center (DLR). Before he joined DLR in 2014, he received his master's degree in Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Berlin in 2014. His current research activities include developing methods for autonomous motion generation for mobile manipulation systems to empower mobile robots to autonomously interact with their environment.

Paul Wood

Staff Computer Scientist, Southwest Research Institute: Mr. Wood received a B.S. in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Systems Design from the University of Texas at San Antonio, in 1979 and an M.S. from Purdue University in computer science in 1983. He has been with Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) for more than 40 years. He is the flight software lead for the Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission. He is software lead for the Magnetospeheric Multiscale (MMS) Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer instrument and Central Instrument Data Processor (CIDP), and is one of the MMS payload systems engineers. His other work includes robotics, telecommunications, and embedded real-time systems. He is an active participant in SwRI's Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) efforts. He has been a frequent participant in Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) activities in many domains including space, medical, and military. His interests include software and systems reliability including the use of process improvement methods and data analysis to detect and prevent defects and measure progress.

Aleksandra Markina Khusid

Department Manager, MITRE Corporation: Aleksandra Markina-Khusid received the B.S. degree in physics, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering, and the M.S. degree in engineering and management, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA 1999, 2001, 2005, and 2015 respectively. She leads the Systems and Mission Analysis Department, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA, USA. Her research interests include analytical and quantitative systems engineering and mission engineering, including systems of systems engineering, trade space analysis, and decision support as enabled by the modern digital engineering approaches.

Georges Labrèche

Spacecraft Operations Engineer, Tanagra Space / European Space Agency: Georges Labrèche develops and operationalizes AI technology demonstrators on-board the European Space Agency's OPS-SAT Space Lab. His research focuses on leveraging edge computing for in-orbit machine learning and autonomous decision-making. He received his B.S. in Software Engineering from the University of Ottawa, Canada, M.A. in International Affairs from the New School University in New York, NY, and M.S. in Spacecraft Design from Luleå University of Technology in Kiruna, Sweden. He founded Tanagra Space, an Estonian-based AI consultancy that supports the OPS-SAT mission control team at ESOC in Darmstadt, Germany. Georges lives in Queens, NY.

Andreas Gerndt

Head of Department, German Aerospace Center (DLR): Prof. Dr. Andreas Gerndt is the head of the department "Software for Space Systems and Interactive Visualization" at German Aerospace Center (DLR). He received his degree in computer science from Technical University, Darmstadt, Germany in 1993. In the position of a research scientist, he also worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD) in Germany. Thereafter, he was a software engineer for several companies with focus on Software Engineering and Computer Graphics. In 1999 he continued his studies in Virtual Reality and Scientific Visualization at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, where he received his doctoral degree in computer science. After two years of interdisciplinary research activities as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, USA, he returned to Germany in 2008 to work for DLR in the domain of aerospace software research. Since 2019, he is also Professor in High-Performance Visualization at University of Bremen, Germany.

Samuel Bibelhauser

Engineer, JHU-APL: Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Internships at NASA Langley and NASA Goddard, including work on drones and wind tunnels. Work at JHUAPL includes imaging systems, flight software, and drones.

Andrew Hess

President, The Hess PHM Group, Inc.: Consultant to government and industry on advanced diagnostics, prognostics, data and predictive analytics, CBM, smart manufacturing, health and asset management of machines and engineering systems. Previously program office lead for the JSF PHM effort. Current President of the PHM Society.

Derek De Vries

Senior Fellow, Nothrop Grumman Propulsion Systems: Mr. Derek R. DeVries, P.E., Senior Fellow and Discipline Owner for Avionics and Controls at Northrop Grumman Propulsion Systems. Senior Member of IEEE with over 30 years’ experience in the Aerospace Industry in Operation, Integration, and Development of Space Launch Systems. PHM Society Fellow, Board of Directors, and Honored as a Luminary Speaker for the PHM 2015 Conference. B.Sc Electrical Engineering from University of Utah, and M.Sc. Electrical Engineering from Utah State University. Industrial Advisory Board Member for the University of Utah Electrical Engineering, AIAA Standards Committee NATO Scientific Achievement Award 2016 "Application of Integrated Munitions health Management", Member for AIAA “S-122-2006 Direct Current Power Systems for Earth-Orbiting Satellites”, 15 U.S./Foreign Patents, and AIAA 2001 JPC Arthur D. Rhea Best Paper Award for "Ordnance Components and Systems". Research/Development interests include advanced Avionics and Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) of integrated systems.

Derek De Vries

Senior Fellow, Nothrop Grumman Propulsion Systems: Mr. Derek R. DeVries, P.E., Senior Fellow and Discipline Owner for Avionics and Controls at Northrop Grumman Propulsion Systems. Senior Member of IEEE with over 30 years’ experience in the Aerospace Industry in Operation, Integration, and Development of Space Launch Systems. PHM Society Fellow, Board of Directors, and Honored as a Luminary Speaker for the PHM 2015 Conference. B.Sc Electrical Engineering from University of Utah, and M.Sc. Electrical Engineering from Utah State University. Industrial Advisory Board Member for the University of Utah Electrical Engineering, AIAA Standards Committee NATO Scientific Achievement Award 2016 "Application of Integrated Munitions health Management", Member for AIAA “S-122-2006 Direct Current Power Systems for Earth-Orbiting Satellites”, 15 U.S./Foreign Patents, and AIAA 2001 JPC Arthur D. Rhea Best Paper Award for "Ordnance Components and Systems". Research/Development interests include advanced Avionics and Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) of integrated systems.

Morteza Safai

Sensors Engineer / Technical Fellow, Boeing Company: Senior Sensors Engineer & Technical Fellow at the Boeing Research and Technology. 30 years of experience with opto electrical sensors, x-ray CT, X-ray backscattering, X-ray line scans, infrared, laser, MEMS, UT and nondestructive testing and Imaging for aerospace, food and medical industries. Holds over 400 patent, patents pending and publications. BS and MS Physics University of Utah.

Andrew Hess

President, The Hess PHM Group, Inc.: Consultant to government and industry on advanced diagnostics, prognostics, data and predictive analytics, CBM, smart manufacturing, health and asset management of machines and engineering systems. Previously program office lead for the JSF PHM effort. Current President of the PHM Society.

Derek De Vries

Senior Fellow, Nothrop Grumman Propulsion Systems: Mr. Derek R. DeVries, P.E., Senior Fellow and Discipline Owner for Avionics and Controls at Northrop Grumman Propulsion Systems. Senior Member of IEEE with over 30 years’ experience in the Aerospace Industry in Operation, Integration, and Development of Space Launch Systems. PHM Society Fellow, Board of Directors, and Honored as a Luminary Speaker for the PHM 2015 Conference. B.Sc Electrical Engineering from University of Utah, and M.Sc. Electrical Engineering from Utah State University. Industrial Advisory Board Member for the University of Utah Electrical Engineering, AIAA Standards Committee NATO Scientific Achievement Award 2016 "Application of Integrated Munitions health Management", Member for AIAA “S-122-2006 Direct Current Power Systems for Earth-Orbiting Satellites”, 15 U.S./Foreign Patents, and AIAA 2001 JPC Arthur D. Rhea Best Paper Award for "Ordnance Components and Systems". Research/Development interests include advanced Avionics and Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) of integrated systems.

Wolfgang Fink

Associate Professor, University of Arizona: Associate Professor and inaugural Edward & Maria Keonjian Endowed Chair, University of Arizona with joint appointments in the Departments of ECE, BME, SIE, AME, and Ophthalmology & Vision Science. AIMBE Fellow, PHMS Fellow, SPIE Fellow, ARVO Fellow, UA da Vinci Fellow, UA ACABI Fellow, and Senior Member IEEE. Ph.D., Theoretical Physics, University of Tübingen, Germany. Among numerous awards are: NASA Space Flight Awareness (SFA) Launch Honoree Award in 2002, co-recipient of the 2009 R&D Magazine’s R&D 100 and R&D 100 Editors’ Choice Award both for the DOE-funded Artificial Retina Project, co-recipient of the 2009 NASA Board Award for pioneering work on a disruptive autonomous space exploration paradigm, co-winner of the $200,000 DOE/NREL-sponsored E-ROBOT Prize in 2021, and recipient of the 2023 SPIE Meinel Technology Achievement Award.

Mark Walker

Chief Technologist, D2K Technologies: Mark Walker received his BSEE from Cal Poly University, Pomona (1990), and his MSCompEng from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (1994), where he specialized in machine intelligence. He has been working in applied artificial intelligence since 1989, and has co-authored four patents in the field. His work with HUMS and PHM began with BFGoodrich Aerospace, Vergennes, VT in 1996. He also worked 6 years as Senior Consulting Engineer for expert system manufacturer Gensym Corporation and 10 years as Lead Engineer, Intelligent Systems for General Atomics, where he led GA in the development of reusable PHM systems applied to various industries. He founded D2K Technologies in 2014, a solution provider of intelligent model-based reasoning systems for mission critical systems. He also serves as a PHM SME for NASA, with active projects at SSC and KSC. He resides with his family in Oceanside, California.

Andrew Hess

President, The Hess PHM Group, Inc.: Consultant to government and industry on advanced diagnostics, prognostics, data and predictive analytics, CBM, smart manufacturing, health and asset management of machines and engineering systems. Previously program office lead for the JSF PHM effort. Current President of the PHM Society.

Heidi Hallowell

Principal GNC Engineer, Ball Aerospace: Heidi Hallowell received B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in Electrical Engineering. During her 18 years at Ball, Heidi has worked in a variety of GNC roles including spacecraft design and development, simulators, on-orbit commissioning, and spacecraft operation. These programs have included both LEO and interplanetary spacecraft. She has been the CloudSat ADCS lead since 2018 and is also the lead ADCS engineer for the S-NPP and JPSS-1/NOAA-20 programs.

Robert Lange

Mission Systems System Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Rob Lange is a Mission Systems System Engineer (MSSE) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with nearly 20 years experience developing and operating flagship class missions. Rob is currently the MSSE for the Sample Retrieval Lander mission. He was the Mars 2020 Mission Planning Lead, and later the MSSE and surface operations commissioning Phase Lead. Previously, Rob worked on the Mars Science Laboratory in Mission System development and operations teams as commissioning phase planning lead, surface phase system engineering, surface operations strategic planning. Prior experience includes Mars Exploration Rovers science operations and Cassini spacecraft operations science planning engineer. Rob received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and M.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California.

William Koenig

Production Operations Lead, NASA - Kennedy Space Center: William J Koenig Received a B.S. Degree in Marine Transportation from the United States Merchant Marine Academy and a M.S. Degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida. He worked in the maritime industry for 8 years before entering the aerospace industry and supporting the Space Shuttle Program in numerous managerial positions for 20 years. In 2007 William joined NASA as the ORION Program Lead for Production Operations. He is presently responsible for supporting the fabrication, transportation, assembly, integration and checkout of the Artemis ORION spacecraft and associated components at Kennedy Space Center.

Diana Lovati

Chief Information Security Officer, Ball Aerospace: Diana Lovati is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) in Enterprise Assurance at Ball Aerospace. In this role, she reports to the VP of Enterprise Assurance and is responsible for Ball Aerospace’s Information Security Program, which includes: Governance, Risk and Compliance, Information Assurance, Cyber Security Operations, Threat Intelligence, Data Protection, Supply Chain Risk Management, Enterprise Security Architecture, and Information Security Portfolio Management. Ball Aerospace recognizes that we operate in an increasingly challenging environment with respect to protecting our people, data, and missions. Threats from the cyber domain continue to grow in number and complexity each day. Diana has previously worked at Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her expertise range from enterprise risk management, project management, IT, Information Security management and organizational strategic change. Diana received a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Illinois and a M.S. in Information Sciences, with a focus on Cybersecurity and Information Assurance from Penn State University. She is a military veteran who served in the United States Navy.

Dennis Ogbe

Signal Analysis Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Dennis O. Ogbe (S’13, M’20) is a member of the Reprogrammable Signal Processing group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Prior to joining JPL, he was a postdoctoral associate in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech in Arlington, VA, followed by a stint as a software-defined radio engineer at Lynk in Falls Church, VA. He holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Tennessee Technological University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University. His research interests are in the fields of communication theory, signal processing, computer engineering, and their application to aerospace engineering problems.

Rebekah Siegfriedt

Systems Engineer , NASA Jet Propulsion Lab: Rebekah Sosland Siegfriedt received a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin in 2013. Since the start of her career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2013, Bekah has worked on two different Mars Rovers as a Mission Operations Systems Engineer. She started her career working on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER), Opportunity. She operated Opportunity for two years as a Flight Director and the Testbed Lead. She left the wonderful, then 11 year old Mars rover to help design operations for the next mars rover, Mars 2020, where she works today. On the Mars 2020 mission, Bekah has worked as the Mission Operations Downlink Systems Engineer where she designed the system that will take downlinked data from the rover and turn it into meaningful information that can be analyzed and viewed quickly. She then moved over to the flight system working as a Flight Systems Engineer designing, owning, and testing the software that manages high level system behaviors on the vehicle. Today, she is back as a Mission Operations Systems Engineer working on Perseverance as the Deputy Team Chief for the Engineering Operations team.

Dean Bucher

Principal Director, The Aerospace Corporation: Mr. Dean Bucher is the Principal Director of Digital Engineering Integration at The Aerospace Corporation, where he leads the digital engineering (DE) transformation of Aerospace. In this role, Mr. Bucher is responsible for providing strategic direction to all corporately funded DE initiatives and ensuring that these efforts are highly integrated to contribute to the broader strategic vision for digital engineering. He also works across numerous, emerging customer DE efforts to better identify opportunities and integrate these for the benefit of the National Security Space (NSS) and Civil Space enterprises. Mr. Bucher joined The Aerospace Corporation in 2005 as a Member of the Technical Staff. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri and an MS in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and he is currently pursuing a PhD in Systems Engineering from Colorado State University.

Robin Dillon Merrill

Professor, Georgetown University: Professor Robin Dillon is a Professor in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Professor Dillon-Merrill seeks to understand and explain how and why people make the decisions that they do under conditions of uncertainty and risk. This research specifically examines critical decisions that people have made following near-miss events in situations with severe outcomes including hurricane evacuation, terrorism, cybersecurity, and NASA mission management. She has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security through USC’s National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis for Terrorism Events. She participated as a NASA Summer Faculty Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center in 2004.

Eric Mahr

Senior Project Leader, The Aerospace Corporation: Senior Project Leader, Strategic Assessments & Studies Division, The Aerospace Corporation. Worked on an array of tasks spanning the space mission life cycle, with a primary focus on programmatic assessments of NASA science missions. B.S., Aerospace Engineering, U. of Arizona and M.S., Aerospace Engineering Sciences, U. of Colorado.

Alfred Nash

Lead, A-Team, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Dr. Alfred E. Nash is the Leader of the A-Team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He received his B. S. in Physics from Stanford University and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Gregory Falco

Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University: Prof. Gregory Falco has been at the forefront of critical infrastructure and space system security in both industry and academia for the past decade. His research entitled Cybersecurity Principles for Space Systems was highly influential in the recent Space Policy Directive-5, which shared the same title. He has been listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 for his inventions and contributions to critical infrastructure cyber security. Falco has been published in Science for his work on cyber risk. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Assured Autonomy and the Civil and Systems Engineering Department. Prof. Falco serves on the Leadership Council for the Maine Spaceport Complex, and as a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Space Systems Critical Infrastructure Working Group. He is also a Cyber Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, Research Affiliate at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University. Falco completed his PhD at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, master’s degree at Columbia University and bachelor’s degree at Cornell University.

Sarah Bucior

Systems Engineer, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory: Sarah Bucior is currently a Senior I&T Engineer on the DART mission aiming to impact an asteroid after launch in late 2021. She received a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering Astronautics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2001 and a MS in Systems Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore in 2015. She has been a Flight Controller on the New Horizons mission for the Pluto flyby as well as been part of the Mission Operations Teams for the STEREO Launch in 2006 and Van Allen (formerly RBSP) Launch in 2012. She was a member of the Parker Solar Probe I&T Launch Team as a Test Conductor in the field for the 2018 launch campaign, and then assisted as a Flight Controller in Mission Operations for Early Commissioning.

Charles Player

Principal Director, Innovation Laboratory, The Aerospace Corporation: I have worked multiple programs on either end of the aerospace technology development spectrum: concept to first flight, operational deployment, and commercial sales. I have seen first-hand what it takes to transform a technology to a viable commercial product. I have developed an appreciation for the needs of not only a program but also the organization and infrastructure necessary to bridge the chasm from idea to profitable and marketable product. My goal for the second half of my career is to utilize my experience to contribute to teams and organizations that are developing, delivering, and commercializing new aerospace technologies. I have a BS in Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Masters in Aerospace Engineering, and a Masters of Business Administration from Old Dominion University and The College of William & Mary, respectively. My career has spanned government (NASA Langley Research Center), multiple commercial companies, and I am currently the Principal Director of the Innovation Laboratory at the Aerospace Corporation, an FFRDC.

John Ryskowski

President, JFR Consulting: John Ryskowski is a change catalyst that has helped organizations get un-stuck since 1989. He is particularly interested in the social entanglements that preclude progress as organizations work to create their vision, identify actions, and achieve goals. John holds a MA in Education from California Lutheran College, a BA in Mathematics from California State University Northridge, is a Problem Solving Leadership graduate, a Certified Scrum Master, and a CMMI High Maturity Lead Appraiser for acquisition, services, and development. John is also a yoga practitioner, electric muscle car evangelist, and the creator of Drum-Talks- https://www.drum-talks.com/

Lorraine Fesq

Chief Technologist, Mission Systems and Operations Division, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Dr. Lorraine Fesq is the Chief Technologist for JPL’s Mission Systems and Operations Division, and the Program Area Manager for Small Bodies and Planetary Defense within JPL’s Planetary Science Directorate. As the recent Program Manager of the ASTERIA CubeSat mission, she demonstrated in-space autonomy experiments. She has over 40 years of experience in industry, government and academia, working all mission phases from formulation to mission operations. Lorraine holds two patents in autonomy, and received a NASA Public Service Medal for her work on the Chandra X-ray Observatory and a NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for advancing the Fault Management discipline. Lorraine taught at MIT and worked on multiple flight missions at JPL, TRW (now Northrop Grumman), Ball Aerospace and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She received her B.A. in Mathematics from Rutgers University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Larry Matthies

Technology Coordinator, Mars Exploration Program, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Dr. Matthies has been at JPL since 1989 and is currently Technology Coordinator in the Mars Exploration Program office. He supervised the JPL Computer Vision Group for 21 years and initiated the development of several computer vision capabilities that have had high impact on Mars missions, including stereo vision and visual odometry for rovers, position and velocity estimation during decent for landers, and visual navigation for helicopters. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a co-recipient of the 2008 IEEE Technical Field Award in robotics, and a member of the editorial boards of the journals Autonomous Robots and Field Robotics.

Nicole Fondse

Systems Director, Aerospace Corporation: Nicole Fondse earned her B. S. in Electrical Engineering and B. S. in Biomedical Engineering from CSU Long Beach in 2005. Upon graduation she joined Northrop Grumman Space Technology. She then earned her M. S. in Systems Engineering and MBA from Loyola Marymount University in 2011. In 2020, Mrs. Fondse transitioned to The Aerospace Corporation where she leads a team supporting the DoD Space Test Program whose responsibility is to provide access to space for military relevant science and technology experiments.

Greg Chavers

Technical Integration, NASA - Headquarters: Dr. Greg Chavers is the acting deputy associate administrator for Systems Engineering and Integration (SE&I) in NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. In this role, Chavers implements directorate-level strategies in response to national priorities and NASA’s vision for human spaceflight. In his previous role, Chavers was deputy manager of NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) Program, and prior to HLS program formulation, he was a lead developer of HLS requirements and government reference architecture. As HLS deputy program manager, Greg was jointly responsible for leading the development of an integrated human lunar landing system for the Artemis program. Dr. Chavers earned his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Auburn University, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in physics from the University of Alabama, Huntsville.

Michael Meyer

Lead Scientist, Mars Exploration Program, NASA HQ: Michael Meyer is a Senior Scientist at NASA Headquarters in the Science Mission Directorate. He is the Lead Scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, responsible for the science content of current and future Mars missions, and Program Scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity mission. Dr. Meyer was the Senior Scientist for Astrobiology from 2001 to 2006; NASA’s Exobiology Discipline Scientsit from 1993-2006; Planetary Protection Officer for NASA from 1994 to 1997; and Program Scientist for the Mars Microprobe mission (DS-2) and for two Phase I Shuttle/Mir experiments. Dr. Meyer's primary research interest is in microorganisms living in extreme environments, particularly the physical factors controlling microbial growth and survival. Dr. Meyer earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in oceanography from Texas A&M University (1985 and 1981) and his B.S. in biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1974).

Robyn Gatens

Director, ISS, NASA - Headquarters: Ms. Robyn Gatens is the director of the International Space Station (ISS) in the Human Exploration and Operations mission directorate at NASA Headquarters. She is also an agency senior expert for environmental control and life support (ECLSS) and crew health and performance systems. As ISS director, Gatens leads strategy, policy, integration, and stakeholder engagement for the space station program at the agency level, including use of the station for research and technology demonstrations including to support NASA’s Artemis missions, and activities to secure an ongoing U.S. presence in low-Earth orbit (LEO) by enabling a successful, long-term private sector commercial LEO space economy. She also serves as NASA’s liaison to the ISS National Laboratory. Ms. Gatens is the recipient of NASA’s Outstanding Leadership and Exceptional Achievement Medals, and holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Nicole Herrmann

Program Executive, NASA Headquarters: Nicole Herrmann serves as a Program Executive in the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. In this role, Nicole provides technical and programmatic integration of projects in the Flight Programs office as well as providing insight and oversight for her assigned missions to Headquarters leadership and external stakeholders. She began her career at NASA as an intern in the History Division and has had various roles supporting future human exploration over the last 15 years at Headquarters and Marshall Space Flight Center. Nicole graduated from the University of Maryland in College Park receiving a Bachelor of Arts in History and a minor in Astronomy. She completed graduate studies at the George Washington University receiving a Master of Arts in International Science and Technology Policy with a focus on Space Policy as well as a Master of Science in Systems Engineering, also from the George Washington University.

Eric Ianson

Associate Director for Flight Programs, NASA:

Richard Mattingly

Member, Mars Program Formulation Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Richard Mattingly is a member of the Mars Program Formulation Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he was in charge of numerous architectural studies on Mars Sample Return starting in the early 2000’s He has also managed systems engineering groups for JPL's projects implemented in partnership with industry, and instrument and payload development. He has been involved in the formulation and development of many of JPL’s planetary and Earth-orbiting spacecraft and payloads since the 1970’s.

Richard Mattingly

Member, Mars Program Formulation Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Richard Mattingly is a member of the Mars Program Formulation Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he was in charge of numerous architectural studies on Mars Sample Return starting in the early 2000’s He has also managed systems engineering groups for JPL's projects implemented in partnership with industry, and instrument and payload development. He has been involved in the formulation and development of many of JPL’s planetary and Earth-orbiting spacecraft and payloads since the 1970’s.