Primary Advisor: Regina Lee
Secondary Advisor: John Moores
Thomas holds undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and an MSc in Computer Science. His research, based on the neoPascal project, currently focuses on developing scientific instrumentation packages to measure weather and climate variables on Mars utilizing commercial off the shelf technology (COTS). These instrumentation packages represent a paradigm shift in traditional design and are based on commercial Cubesat technologies. Rather than large payloads massing hundreds to thousands of kilograms, each package will be thin, light, and flexible without the need for a warm electronics box. The advantages to this are ease of deployment (for EDL) and low cost. Thus, they can be mass produced for greater geographic coverage in the verification of the Mars GCM (Global Climate Model). Aspects of this research include sensor network design, communications link budgets, power generation and storage, EDL, electronics and more. Thomas's research interests include robotics, computational complexity, and interactive systems; hobbies include amateur radio, astronomy, archery, and thinking about cosmology.
