AIAA LA-LV April 25 Online e-Town Hall Meeting event 

Volunteers are needed for al AIAA activities, please contact cgsonwane@gmail.com

AIAA LA-LV April 25

Online e-Town Hall Meeting

AIAA Los Angeles Las Vegas and SCALACS joint Earth Day e-Town Hall Meeting

10:05 AM: Welcome & Introduction by Dr. Chandrashekhar SonwaneChair of AIAA LALV Section & EPA Scientific Advisory Board member

10:10 AM: Welcome by Dr. Brian Brady, Chair of SCALACS10:15 AM Prof. Madhu Thangavelu, USC (Space and City: Lessons from the Future)

10:35 AM Prof. Sachdev Sidhu, Molecular Genetics and the Donnelly Centre at the University of Toronto (COVID-19 Therapeutic Development in Real Time: Roadblocks and Opportunities)

11:15 AM Brett Cornick (Challenges faced by future Generation)

11:25 AM Erik Jessen, Raytheon (Management Theory and Leadership)

12:05 PM Dr. João Teixeira, Co-Director, Center for Climate Sciences, NASA JPL (The Climate of the 21st Century from Space)  

12:45 PM Panel Discussion on How to Protect and develop the Earth for a better future (moderated by Prof. Madhu Thangavelu)  Prof. Madhu Thangavelu,  Dr. João Teixeira,  Prof. Sachdev Sidhu, Dastan Khalili (15 min talk), Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum (15 min talk), Marty Waldman, Prof. Craig Smith 

1:45 PM Nuclear is the only true Renewable Energy Source, a Case Study in Nevada (Marty Waldman and Craig Smith) 

2:45 PM Adjourn 

Prof. Madhu Thangavelu

USC, ISU

Madhu Thangavelu, MSc is space projects director of the Cal-Earth Institute and a fellow at NASA’s Institute of Advanced Concepts. He is an advisory board member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics with a focus on the design of complex space projects, including space stations and exploratory missions. He also teaches at the University of Southern California. Madhu’s educational background is in Architecture (Masters in Building Science, USC School of Architecture) and in Engineering (Bachelors in Science and Engineering, India). Versions of Madhu’s masters thesis (conceived during ISU ‘88 at MIT) entitled “MALEO: Modular Assembly in Low Earth Orbit. An Alternate Strategy for Lunar Base Establishment” were published in several journals worldwide.  He is a creative consultant to the aerospace industry in the newly evolving field of space architectures complex concept synthesis. His concepts have been reviewed and appreciated by NASA, the National Research Council, the National Space Council, and his work has been presented before the National Academy of Sciences. Madhu is on the visiting faculty of the International Space University (ISU) and lectures to Space System Architecture students at ISU and at USC. He continues to present and publish original concepts in Space System Architectures and chairs related sessions at conferences. He is a coauthor of the book The Moon: Resources, Future Development and Colonization and is Vice Chairman for Education, Los Angeles Section of the American Institute Of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

COVID-19 Therapeutic Development in Real Time: Roadblocks and Opportunities

The speed and scale of the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the urgent need for better methods for developing, scaling and testing novel therapeutics. The crisis has presented severe challenges to global health and economics but has also provided an opportunity to integrate advanced methods and innovative development processes. Our group is targeting the COVID-19 virus from two angles: (1) biologics that will prevent the virus from entering host cells and (2) protease inhibitors that will prevent replication and release from host cells. We are using cutting-edge synthetic protein engineering methods to develop optimized inhibitors in real time, to provide agents that can combat not only the COVID-19 virus, but also, its relatives that could emerge as threats in the future.

Prof. Sachdev Sidhu
Molecular Genetics and the Donnelly Centre at the University of Toronto

Dr Sidhu is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and the Donnelly Centre at the University of Toronto. Dr Sidhu is also the founder of the Toronto Recombinant Antibody Centre (TRAC) and the Centre for Commercialization of Antibodies and Biologics (CCAB). Dr. Sidhu joined the Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research in 2008 after ten years as a Principal Investigator in the Department of Protein Engineering at Genentech. He returned to academia after a distinguished career at Genentech where he led the development of its phage display technology. Dr. Sidhu's research is primarily focused in the field of protein engineering and technologies that explore and shape protein and antibody structure and function, with the aim of crafting better therapies for cancer and other diseases. He has a wealth of experience in commercial antibody discovery. He has published more than 240 scientific papers and is a co-inventor on more than 50 patents granted or filed with the US patent office. Dr. Sidhu was the recipient of the 2015 Christian B. Anfinsen Award of the Protein Society for significant technological achievements in protein research.

Dr. Joao Teixeira, Co-Director
Center for Climate Sciences, NASA JPL

In addition to his duties as Co-Director of the Center for Climate Sciences, Dr. Joao Teixeira serves as the Science Team Leader for the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Project. In addition, he is a Visiting Associate in Environmental Science & Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, and a Visiting Scholar at the Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering (JIFRESSE) at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to his work at JPL, Dr. Teixeira was a Senior Scientist at the NATO Undersea Research Centre in La Spezia, Italy, a UCAR Fellow at the Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, California, and a Scientist at the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts in Reading, United kingdom. Dr. Teixeira's research interests include the links between turbulence, clouds and climate, and the use of a variety of models and observations to better understand the interactions between Earth’s climate system and small-scale processes such as convection.

Erik Jessen
Raytheon

Professional History:
BSEE, UCSD, MSEE, UCI
Thesis: Timing-driven high-level synthesis of DSP datapath6 startups, several medium-sized companies
Almost 5 years at Raytheon

Expertise (Work Experience):
Transistor physics (Bipolar, BiCMOS, CMOS process design) (5 years)
Mixed-signal design (5 years)
Reliability/Production Test (7 years)
Digital ASIC,FPGA Development, Verification, Embedded SW, Requirements, System and Subsystem Architecture, Lead and ASIC Manager (20+)
Now leading Software teams doing Agile+DevOps

Other interests: Sailing, skiing, cooking, building teams from multiple cultures

Brett Cornick

Brett is an early career materials engineer currently doing part-time work for Epic Advanced Materials and Nanoarmor - two Los Angeles based start-ups where he focuses primarily on material modeling and simulation. He holds an MS in Materials Science from UCLA and a BS in Chemical Engineering from USC and has spent two separate research stints at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. He also has professional experience in additive manufacturing, machine learning, and cybersecurity.

Marty Waldman

BD & Intellectual Property Director / Space Systems
Architect for Space Information Labs (SIL) www.SpaceInformationlabs.com
-NDIA Southern Nevada Chapter Founder/1st President, Jan 2018-2020
https://ndia-snv.org/
-Las Vegas Chapter Chair of the Los Angeles/Las Vegas AIAA
https://www.aiaa-lasvegas.org
-Las Vegas Spaceport Project Lead @LasVegasSpaceport
-Co-founder of the Endeavour Institute STEM outreach organization, Vandenberg AFB, CA
-LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marty-waldman-6868368/

Mr. Waldman brings over 42 years of DoD Navy and Air Force Program Management experience to SIL from his technical involvement with Cruise Missile, Space Shuttle, Titan IV, Minuteman, Peacekeeper and Eastern/Western Range Data Acquisition and Processing Systems. Having successfully authored and prosecuted numerous Patents, Mr. Waldman’s insight and understanding of what’s necessary to bring a product to the commercial/military market is continually demonstrated via the fielding of these and other key technologies at SIL.

Leading SIL projects include the Vehicle Based Independent Tracking System (VBITS) Patent # 5739787, Military Grade Small Satellites, Space Rated Battery/Power Systems, Vehicle Based Independent Range System (VBIRS), Patent Publication # US20170328678A1, granted as Patent #10,302,398 on 28 May 2019. All systems support Missile, Rocket, Hypersonic, Satellite, Aircraft and UAV operations.

Recent work with the NevadansCAN and NDIA has enabled Mr. Waldman to become a team-member with the Small Modular Nuclear Reactor/Microgrid development for Nevada test & implementation: https://ndia-snv.org/reactors-%2F-microgrids B.S. Electrical Engineering, Northeastern University. 34+ Years of Navy/Air Force Civil Service prior to his current Private Sector Service.