
People
Director

Prof Guglielmo Aglietti
Space Institute Director
Aerospace structures and mechanisms, deployable structures
Academic and Professional Staff

Prof Roberto Armellin
Professor Mechanical Engineering
Astrodynamics, guidance, navigation and control, space surveillance and tracking

Dr Mark Battley
Associate Professor Engineering Science
Non-destructive inspection methods for materials and structures

Dr Priyanka Dhopade
Lecturer Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
Sustainable engineering across thermofluids, environmental engineering and te ao Māori

Dr Harry Holt
Research Fellow
Astrodynamics, Trajectory Design, Lyapunov Control, Reinforcement Learning

Chris Jackson
Mission Operations Centre Director
Spacecraft operations infrastructure and mission operations.

Dr Laura Pirovano
Research Fellow
Astrodynamics, Space Situational Awareness, Orbit determination and data association

Dr Nicholas Rattenbury
Senior Lecturer in Physics
Optical communication and propulsion systems for nanosatellites, astrophysics

Dr Thomas Dowling
Lecturer in Geospatial Science
Remotely sensed data: sensor development, field validation and downstream exploitation

A Prof Oliver Sinnen
Associate Professor in Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering
Parallel Computing, Fault Tolerance and Robust Task Scheduling, Square Kilometre Array (SKA), FPGA Acceleration of Radio

Jim Hefkey
Director – Auckland Programme for Space Systems (APSS)

Emanuele Romano
National Satellite Test Facility Manager

Catherine Qualtrough
Research Operations Manager

Laila Sabardin
Research Operations Coordinator
Postgraduate Students

Lorenzo Anoe
PhD student
New method to find Ballistic Capture trajectories. Continuation to Periodic Orbits and high-fidelity models

Jakob Balkenhohl
PhD student
Low-power hollow cathodes in AF-MPDTs at high applied magnetic field strengths

Annalisa Tresoldi
PhD student
Deployable structure for a Synthetic Aperture Radar antenna for small satellites

Minduli Wijayatanga
PhD student
Trajectory optimisation and guidance using indirect and convex methods

Chingiz Akniyazov
PhD student
Mixed Radar and Optical Initial Orbit Determination