After transferring to UC Davis from the University of Arizona and then majors, from Atmospheric Science to Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Andrew found a community where he could expand his engineering principles and support for human space travel.

During Andrew’s undergraduate education, he designed and launched high-powered rockets as a member of the Eclipse Rocketry Team at UC Davis, which competes in NASA’s University Student Launch Initiative. Rocketry roles ranged from fin design, preliminary mission performance studies, Safety Officer, and Launch Operations Manager.

Andrew’s first technical internship was at Moog CSA Engineering in Mountain View, CA. Andrew designed, tested, built, and reported on flight-ready hardware. Projects included validating a gravity-offloading device to train robotic space arms and developing an antenna locking apparatus for a CubeSat.

Andrew is a NASA pathways intern hired in 2019 as a simulation engineer at Ames Research Center, where he worked with the Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS), the world’s largest vertical range motion simulator. The VMS helps develop control systems with humans in the loop for Next-Generation Aircraft and Human Lunar Landing Systems. Andrew modeled all the electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, and command networks to enable a VMS digital twin that will play a part in the VMS control systems. Now, Andrew is assigned to Johnson Space Center’s Crew and Thermal Systems Division Design and Analysis Branch. His work pertains to the soft goods (exercise clothes, laundry, and spacesuit garments) sent into space.

As a master’s student at HRVIP, Andrew put his passion for human space travel towards developing a preliminary platform for cleaning fabrics during deep space exploration with human exercise. His Ph.D. research hopes to simultaneously address the daily workout requirements for micro-gravity environments, removing human byproducts from fabrics using in-situ resource utilization, water management in microgravity, filtering greywater, modeling the entire system for prognostics, diagnostics, and exercise prescriptions. His free time is composed of cooking, playing RPG video games, participating in STEM Outreach for Academic Reinforcement, and gardening.