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Lab Director

Steven Berg, PhD

Dr. Berg has served as Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Rutgers University since 2023. He has previous industry experience as CEO of a small business focused on small satellite propulsion research and development, and as a propulsion and test engineer at SpaceX. He earned his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2015 for his work in multimode spacecraft propulsion. He has co-authored more than 40 publications and presentations and two patents.

Google Scholar Profile

PhD Students

Dhrumil Soni, Candidate

Project: Experimental Measurements of Momentum Exchange and Drag Force in the VLEO Flight Regime

Nipun Wijesinghe, Pre-Candidate

Project: Numerical Simulation of Gas-Surface Interactions Relevant to VLEO Flight

MS Students

Cameron Matulewski

Project: Design of a Very Small Modular Reactor for Nuclear Small Satellite Propulsion

Rebecca Fabian, JJ Slade Scholar

Project: Performance of Hall Thrusters Operating with Decomposed Monopropellants

Kael Jespersen, JJ Slade Scholar

Project: Catalytic Microtube Reactors for Injection of Energetic Monopropellants in Electric Propulsion Devices

Gene Lazzaraga

Project:

Avanthika Vuppala

Project:

MEng Students

Patrick Czachor

Project:

Enock Rey

Project:

Undergraduate Students

Riya Kapadia, Aresty Summer Scholar

Himesh Trivedi, NASA Space Grant Fellow

Akshay Khatri

Natalia Rabinovich

Bryan Lu, Aresty Research Assistant

Manuel Valcarcel

Rushil Chamarthi

 

 

 

Alumni

Alex Bryan-Jones, MS 2026, Now Test Engineer at SpaceX

Ethan Oliva, MS 2026

Sean Connolly, MEng 2026, Now Mechanical Engineer at Blue Origin

Sathya Balachander, BS 2026, Now Graduate Student at USC

Andrew Huth, BS 2026, Now Graduate Student at Rutgers ECE

Pablo Thomas, MEng 2026, Now Structures Engineer at Firefly

Vru Shah, MEng 2026, Now Engineer at Avantier

David Samolkin, MS 2025, Now Mechanical Engineer at Blue Origin

Harry Thomas, MEng 2025, Now Engineer at Northrup Grumman

Joseph Palethu, MEng 2025, Now Engineer at

Ashleigh Jacobs, BS 2025, Now Engineer at General Dynamics Electric Boat

Jack Kellaher, BS 2025, Now Launch Engineer at SpaceX