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Dean's Distinguished Lecture

Date & Time

Friday, February 23, 2024, 3:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m.

Category

Community

Location

Richard Weeks Hall of Engineering, 500 Bartholomew Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854

Contact

Kendra Cameron

Rutgers School of Engineering Dean's Distinguished Lecture on Robotics: Pioneering Space Exploration with three presenters.

Please join a distinguished panel of experts in space architecture and space systems as we delve into the seamless synergy between cutting-edge robotics, the expansive frontier of human endeavors in space, and the transformative potential of 3D printing technology.

Stephen J. Indyk ENG’10, GSNB’15 
Director of Space Systems
Honeybee Robotics

Stephen Indyk is Honeybee Robotics’ director of space systems in Greenbelt, Maryland where he leads flight hardware sampling system development projects destined for Mars, the moon, and Saturn’s Titan moon, including Mars Sample Return (MSR), Commercial Lunar Payloads Services (CLPS), and Dragonfly missions. A member of the science teams for the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, and the Mars Exploration Rovers, Sprit and Opportunity, with flight operation instrument experience in Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM) and the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT). He is a leader of the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) Extreme Environments subgroup for Vacuum Environment that expands NASA’s understanding of the research challenges in engineering lunar environment systems. Other research interests include planetary in-situ resource utilization technologies, and mechanisms for extreme environments. He holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from Rutgers Engineering.

Watch: NJAA Tonight - "Stephen Indyk"

Larry Toups
NASA (Retired)
Adjunct Professor 
Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture
University of Houston
Cullen College of Engineering

As a senior engineer with Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Company at Johnson Space Center (JSC) from l988-1994, Larry Toups provided technical support for JSC’s New Initiatives Office in habitat and planetary systems engineering and contributed to NASA studies on the exploration of the moon and Mars. From 1994 until 2020, he worked in the International Space Station (ISS) Program Office as habitability systems lead in its Vehicle Office where he was responsible for human factors requirements and crew quarters, galley, and food systems. He has served as an adjunct professor at SICSA, as well as a visiting environmental studies faculty member at Rice University, and at Lund University School of Industrial Design in Lund, Sweden. He holds a B.Arch. degree from the University of Houston and a MS degree in Space Architecture from its Sasakawa Institute for Space Architecture (SICSA).

Listen to: Larry Toups Tests Inflatable Lunar Habitat in Antarctica | PBS LearningMedia

Melodie Yashar
Vice President, Building Design and Performance
ICON

Melodie Yashar is a space architect, technologist, and researcher. In her current role as vice president of building design and performance at ICON, a construction technologies company focused on large scale additive manufacturing for Earth and in space, she oversees the architectural direction of ICON’s built work as well as the performance of ICON’s building systems that shift homebuilding paradigms on Earth and beyond. She has previously worked with the Human Systems Integration Division at NASA Ames via San Jose State University Research Foundation (SJSURF) within the Human Computer Interaction Lab. She was also a co-founder of Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch+), which develops human-supporting designs for space exploration, and has been an architecture professor at Pratt Institute. An advocate for minority STEM education, she currently teaches space architecture at Art Center College of Design. Her award-winning projects include Mars Ice House and Mars X-House, and she has been a leader in the design and construction of NASA’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA). She holds a Master of Architecture from Columbia University and a Master of Human Computer Interaction for Robotics from Carnegie Mellon.

Watch: Melodie Yashar's TED Talk: How to Build for Human Life on Mars

•    Time: 3 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
•    In-Person Location: Richard Weeks Hall of Engineering, Room 102
•    Reception to follow in Richard Weeks Hall of Engineering Lobby
     o    Parking: If you are a non-Rutgers employee, please contact Kendra Cameron at
kendrac@soe.rutgers.edu