Dr. Paula do Vale Pereira is currently an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the Florida Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on technology development for space exploration, mainly through the use of Earth-orbiting small spacecraft and probes for the exploration of Ocean Worlds, such as Europa and Enceladus. She has worked on the development of three satellites, being the Assembly, Integration and Testing lead for the BeaverCube satellite, the lead operator for the DeMi satellite, and the lead Mechanical Engineer for both BeaverCube and DeMi. She has also worked on the development, testing, and modeling of melt probes for subsurface descent in the cryogenic vacuum ice found in icy moons in the outer solar system. Dr. do Vale Pereira holds several degrees including a Ph.D. in Space Systems Engineering and a M.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Stay tuned after for our takeaways.
