ISSC 2018
Keynote Speakers
Charles Norton
Dr. Charles D. Norton is currently the NASA SMD Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator for Small Spacecraft Programs responsible for establishing NASA's strategic direction for innovative small satellite science missions from ESPA-Class spacecraft down to CubeSats. Prior to this appointment, he served as a program area manager and principal technologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology as the Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) and In-Space Validation of Earth Science Technologies (InVEST) Program Associate for NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) at JPL. He has also served as the JPL engineering and science directorate formulation lead for Small Satellites with additional duties within various JPL strategic investment and formulation committees. His research interests include small satellite spaceborne technology validation, high-performance computing for Earth and space science modeling, and advanced information systems technologies. He has managed multiple CubeSat flight projects, co-led a Caltech Keck Institute for Space Sciences Study Program on “Small Satellites: A Revolution in Space Science”, and co-authored two 2 National Academies of Science reports on “Achieving Science with CubeSats: Thinking Inside the Box” and “Powering Science: NASA’s Large Strategic Science Missions”. Prior to joining JPL, he was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow. He has given more than 30 national and international keynote/invited talks; published in various journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters, and is a recipient of numerous awards for new technology and innovation, including the JPL Lew Allen Award and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal.
Sergio Pellegrino
Sergio Pellegrino, Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Civil Engineering at the California Institute of Technology and JPL Senior Research Scientist, received a Laurea in Civil Engineering from the University of Naples in 1982 and a PhD in Structural Mechanics from the University of Cambridge in 1986.
His general area of research is the mechanics of lightweight structures, with a focus on packaging, deployment, shape control and stability. With his students and collaborators, he is currently working on novel concepts for future space telescopes, spacecraft antennas, and space-based solar power systems.
As a member of the NASA Superpressure Balloon design team, for over 10 years he has worked on analysis methods for stratospheric balloons. Dr Pellegrino's publications have been selected for several awards, including the ICE James Watt Medal 2000; AIAA Gossamer Spacecraft Forum Best Paper Award in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2011 and 2013; IASS Tsuboi Award in 2004, 2005, and 2007; ASME/Boeing Best Paper Award in 2008; and ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Committee Best Paper Award in 2013. He has received a Pioneers' Award in 2002 from the Space Structures Research Center, University of Surrey and a NASA Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Team Award in 2009.
Dr Pellegrino is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of AIAA and a Chartered Structural Engineer. He is President of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the IASS. Dr Pellegrino is the author of over 250 technical publications.
