Faculty and Staff

Ph.D., Purdue University, 2007. ASME (Fellow), AIAA (Senior Member), IEEE (Senior Member), AAS (Senior Member). Research Interests: Multibody Dynamics, Rotordynamics, Spaceflight Dynamics, Intelligent Control Systems, Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) of Aerospace Vehicles.

Ph.D., Purdue University, 1989. AIAA (Associate Fellow). NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) Aviation Management Office (AMO) Chief Engineer. Lead engineering effort in preparing NASA missions involving flight assets to achieve airworthiness certification. Research Interests: aircraft composite materials, loads development, linear and nonlinear analysis, and damage tolerance.

Mr. Djordjevic graduated from UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Sciences with a BS (1976) an MS (1978) in Engineering, and a PhD candidacy (Equivalent to the Engineer Degree) (1982).

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1996. Research Interests: Nanoscale Heat Generation and Transport, Electronics Cooling, Energy, Computational, Analytical, and Experimental Fluid Mechanics

Dr. Ian Johnson joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Santa Clara University as a lecturer in 2024. He graduated from the University of Washington in 2015 where his research focused on integrating an alternative propellant Pulsed Plasma Thruster into the High-Power Helicon Thruster Experiment. Ian is currently a Principal Engineer at Maxar Space Systems in Palo Alto, where he leads the propulsion team for the Psyche mission with JPL, the OSAM-1 mission with NASA Goddard, and the Lunar Artemis Gateway Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) with NASA Glenn, in addition to supporting numerous geostationary communication spacecraft for commercial customers. He has research and industry experience with both electric and chemical propulsion subsystems.

Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016. AIAA (Member) and Vertical Flight Society (Member). U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missile Center, Subject Matter Expert for Flight Dynamics Modeling. Research Interest: Flight Dynamics Modeling for Fixed Wing and Rotary Wing Vehicles, High Fidelity Physics-Based Modeling, System Identification, Manned Aviation and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).

Ph.D. from Santa Clara University in Mechanical engineering, a senior research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center with 35 years of experience. Research interests: adaptive control theory, optimal control theory, distributed control theory, aircraft flight dynamics and control, aerodynamics, and aeroelasticity.