Meet the current leadership of the MAXWELL team! We are more than just engineers and scientists, so read below to learn more about us.

Seasoned Experts

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Prof. Scott Palo

Principal Investigator

Dr. Palo is the Charles Victor Schelke Endowed Professor in the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department.  He has been involved with the development of small satellites for nearly 20 years and has been either principle investigator or co-principle investigator on the following small satellite programs: the Drag and Neutral Density Explorer (DANDE), Colorado Student Space Weather Explorer (CSSWE), the Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer 1&2 (MinXSS-1 & 2), QB50 Challenger, Maxwell and the University of Colorado Earth Escape Explorer (CU-E3).  Dr. Palo has a background in electrical engineering with research interests in remote sensing, upper atmosphere physics, space weather and satellite communications systems.  His teaching interests center on experiential project based learning.  Dr. Palo is a founding member and chair of the AIAA Small Satellite Technical committee and was a founding member of the National Capstone Design Conference.

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Dr. Marcin Pilinski

Project Advisor

Dr. Marcin Pilinski is a research associate at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder Colorado.  He has been involved in small satellite development since 2004 and has served as a subsystem lead, project manager, systems engineer, or co-investigator on three 50kg-class spacecraft and five CubeSats.  His research interests include aeronomy and space-weather, satellite drag modeling and spacecraft gas-surface interactions, and small-spacecraft instrument design.

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Dr. Nicholas Rainville

Project Advisor

 

Jerome Hittle

Jerome Hittle

Project Advisor

Jerome is the electrical power systems (EPS) advisor for MAXWELL. He has over 15 years of experience in the aerospace industry, and has worked on four deep space missions, including missions to the Sun, Jupiter, and Mars. Specializing in power systems for sub-1kW class spacecraft, he designed the charge controller for NASA’s InSight mission to Mars. Today, his research centers around digitally controlled power systems for cubesats and commercial markets. Jerome received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston in 2007.

Student Leadership

Ashutosh Kalsi

Ashutosh Kalsi

Project Manager

Ashutosh is pursing a masters degree in Computer Science with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. He has vast experience in software industry and has lead and managed diverse projects thoughout his career. 

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Ben Gavin

Chief Engineer

Ben is a grad student at CU Boulder currently working as the Systems Engineer for the MAXWELL CubeSat project with the Satellite Technology Integration Laboratory. Currently he assists the team with AI&T, development on the Electrical Power System, and hardware acceptance testing. His master’s specialization focuses on Autonomous Systems with a certificate in Satellite System Design. 

Former Student Leadership

Aaron Aboaf

Aaron Aboaf

Former Project Manager

Aaron recently completed his Master's in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado in May 2020 and completed his Bachelors in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder in May 2019. His Masters focus is in structures and embedded systems. Aaron spent four years working with CubeSat missions at the University of Colorado and three years working directly on MAXWELL. In 2018 Aaron was named an AIAA Twenty 20's, and took second place in the 27th Frank J. Redd Student Paper Competition at the 2019 SmallSat Conference for the paper Design of an In-Situ Sensor Package to Track CubeSat Deployments. He currently is a Systems Engineer at the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah working with their SmallSat programs.