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

Seasoned Experts

Photo of Scott Palo

Prof. Scott Palo

Principal Investigator

Dr. Palo is the听Charles Victor Schelke Endowed听Professor in the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department.听 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).听 Dr. Palo has a background in electrical engineering with research interests in remote sensing, upper atmosphere physics, space weather and satellite communications systems.听 His teaching interests center on experiential project based learning.听 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.

Photo of Marcin Pilinski

Dr. Marcin Pilinski

Project Advisor

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

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Dr. Nicholas Rainville

Project Advisor

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Jerome Hittle

Jerome Hittle

Project Advisor

Jerome is the electrical power systems (EPS) advisor for MAXWELL.听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.听Specializing in power systems for sub-1kW class spacecraft, he designed the charge controller for NASA鈥檚 InSight mission to Mars. Today, his research centers around digitally controlled power systems for cubesats and commercial markets.听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听degree in Computer Science听with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. He has vast experience in software industry听and has lead and managed diverse projects thoughout his career.听

Photo of Ben Gavin

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听AI&T, development on the Electrical Power System, and听hardware acceptance testing.听His master鈥檚 specialization focuses on Autonomous Systems with a certificate in Satellite System Design.听

Former Student Leadership

Aaron Aboaf

Aaron Aboaf

Former Project Manager

Aaron recently completed his Master's in Aerospace Engineering听at the University of Colorado in May 2020 and听completed his Bachelors in Aerospace Engineering at the 麻豆视频 in May 2019. His Masters focus is in structures and embedded systems. Aaron spent four years听working with CubeSat missions at听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 . He currently is a Systems Engineer at the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah working听with their SmallSat programs.