Master’s in Aerospace Engineering

In my teaching I bring fluid and aerodynamics experiments, including wind tunnels, into the classroom each day. Fundamental concepts are demonstrated in these experiments, and collected data is immediately compared to the theory and equations learned during lecture. Students see that they can use what they are learning in class to predict the behavior of aerospace systems. They then go on to design improved systems in MQP projects and during their careers.

Prior to joining the faculty at WPI in 2001, I was a Senior Staff Engineer in the Advanced Propulsion Technology Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). My research at JPL included application of plasma sources for materials processing and the development of pulsed plasma and small-scale hydrazine thrusters. In the mission support area, I worked as the propulsion engineer for the Deep Space 3 Interferometer and Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) missions.

Prior to joining the faculty at WPI in August 2015, I worked as a post-doctoral research associate at Graduate Aerospace Laboratories at California Institute of Technology. My research at Caltech focused on the development of a Granular Element Method (GEM) based force visualization technique for the study of 2D granular systems under impact loading. I examined of the role of granular fabric on the wave motion and formation of force chains in granular media.

Nikolaos A. Gatsonis received an undergraduate degree in Physics at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Greece (1983), an M.S. in Atmospheric Science at the University of Michigan (1996), an M.S. (1987) and a Ph.D. (1991) in the Aeronautics and Astronautics department of MIT. From 1991 to 1993 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Space Department of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In 1994 he joined the Mechanical Engineering faculty at WPI, promoted to Associate Professor in 2000 and to Professor in 2005. He is the Founding Director of the B.S. (2005), M.S.

Autonomous vehicles – aircraft, cars, rovers, over- and underwater vehicles that can move in the real world by themselves without human pilotage – have gained immense importance not only due to the broad spectrum of their potential military and civilian applications, but also due to the concurrent development of sensor technology and embedded systems that enable the realization of true autonomy.

Professor Demetriou is very active with the Controls and Systems research community. He served as an Associate Editor in the IEEE Tr. on Automatic Control (2004-2007), in the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control (2009-2011), and in SIAM J. Control and Optimization (2009-present). He is also serving in the IEEE-Control Systems Society Conference Editorial Board as an Associate Editor (1997-present). In 2003 he established the IEEE-CSS Technical Committee on Distributed Parameter Systems and served as his first chair (2003-2012).

My research is aimed towards understanding fundamental aspects of reacting flows at thermodynamic conditions of relevance to aircraft, rocket, and automobile propulsion. Reacting flow phenomena occurring in engines are complicated as a result of turbulent flow, interaction with solid boundaries, and extreme thermodynamic conditions. In order to understand and simulate combustion phenomena under such conditions, there is a necessity to develop accurate chemical kinetic and molecular transport models in addition to fluid mechanics models.