Director:
Prof. Christos Christodoulou is Director for Configurable Space Microsystems Innovations and Applications Center (COSMIAC) a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Albuquerque. His research interests are in the areas of modeling of electromagnetic systems, FPGA reconfigurable systems, and smart RF/photonics. He is responsible for leading the COSMIAC collaboration between Government, Industry, and Academia to ensure design success and deployment of programmable logic in space, military and civil applications as well as to develop the long-term plans for the Center.

Dr. Christodoulou is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters and the International Journal of RF and Microwave Computer-aided Engineering. He served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation for six years; as a guest editor for a special issue on "Applications of Neural Networks in Electromagnetics" in the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES) journal; and as the Co-Editor of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Special Issue on "Synthesis and Optimization Techniques in Electromagnetics and Antenna System Design" (March 2007). He was appointed as an IEEE AP-S Distinguished Lecturer (2007-2009) and elected as the President for the Albuquerque IEEE Section. Dr. Christodoulou has published over 300 papers in journals and conferences, has been awarded three patents, and has authored/co-authored eleven book chapters and four books.

Dr. Christodoulou received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1985. He served as a faculty member in the University of Central Florida, Orlando, from 1985 to 1998. In 1999, he joined the faculty of UNM's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, where he served as the Chair of the Department through 2005. Dr. Christodoulou is an IEEE Fellow and a member of Commission B of USNC/URSI, Eta Kappa Nu, and the Electromagnetics Academy.

Deputy Director:
Mr. Craig J. Kief serves as Deputy Director of COSMIAC. Mr. Kief serves as the lead Program Manager for the Air Force Research Laboratory's Cubeflow training program and is a Research Scholar on the faculty at the University of New Mexico. In this capacity, he is responsible for overseeing curriculum and training development, teaching short courses, and coordinating the scheduling and registration of COSMIAC courses.

Mr. Kief has over 32 years experience in computer and satellite communications, including voice and data networks, testing, troubleshooting, debugging, system administration, embedded software, software/hardware integration, and network monitoring. Mr. Kief has extensive background in programmable logic involving FPGA and CPLD technologies. He is currently developing a 1U CubeSat to perform space weather analysis. This satellite will be launched in 2012. Mr. Kief retired from the Air Force in 1998 following 20 years of military service. His final military assignment was at the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) at Kirtland Air Force Base.

Mr. Kief has a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of New Mexico. He has published and taught in the areas of digital and programmable logic and in verification and validation of systems. He is also an IEEE senior member.

Chief Research Officer:
Dr. Steven C. Suddarth is the Chief Research Officer of COSMIAC. He serves as Research Faculty at the University of New Mexico.

A retired Air Force Colonel with 24 years of service, Dr. Suddarth served his last military assignment as the liaison from U.S. Strategic Command to the National Laboratories. Based in Los Alamos, NM, Col. Suddarth initiated and oversaw a development team of 60 people spanning four sites to develop key technologies for the war fighter. Dr. Suddarth has overseen several substantial computer engineering/embedded systems projects. These include the development of a first-ever 3-dimensional mixed analog/digital image processor which advanced the State-of-the-Art by 3 orders of magnitude. Dr. Suddarth also built and tested several airborne optical sensing systems, unmanned aerial robotics systems, and software systems for large military space programs.

Dr. Suddarth is a 1982 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy (B.S. in Electrical Engineering), and he holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington. Dr. Suddarth is also a graduate of the Brazilian Air Command and Staff College, U.S. Joint Forces Staff College, and the U.S. Air War College. He has authored over 20 papers.

Research Scholar:
Mr. David Alexander received BSEE and MSEE degrees from the United States Air Force Academy in 1968 and from the University of New Mexico in 1973. He has been an active member of the radiation effects community for 42 years. He has held positions at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, BDM Corporation, Sandia National Laboratories, Mission Research Corporation, the Institute for Space and Defense Electronics, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. He is currently a consultant for COSMIAC and the University of New Mexico. He has been an active participant in the technical community authoring numerous papers in the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science and the Hardened Electronics and Radiation Technology Conference.

Research Engineer:
Mr. Brian Zufelt is an electrical engineer and graduated from the University of New Mexico. He has written many tutorials over FPGA design utilizing VHDL. He has also assisted many community colleges in the creation of FPGA based curriculum. Over the last three years, Zufelt has been working with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) and the COSMIAC to create Space Plug-and-play Architecture (SPA) components, and provided training on SPA tools and architecture. To date, Zufelt has trained over 500 engineers in this new approach to spacecraft design. Recent work involves the use of different types of Mini Plug and Play network managers that can control various Appliqué Sensor Interface Modules. This approach builds on the current SPA-1 standard while remaining ITAR free. This architecture will be flown on the RAMPAT Cubesat mission and the Trailblazer Cubesat mission that are in current development. Trailblazer will be one of the first satellites to completely run on top of the new Plug and Play concept. It will be a 1U Cubesat that is set to launch next fall. It will fly a dosimeter to test the radiation levels of the South Atlantic Anomaly in addition to testing a new type of 3D Printed Circuit Board – rapid prototyping design. Trailblazer will also show the benefit that Plug and Play methodology has on spacecraft design in both development time and cost. The RAMPART mission will include a small Mini Plug and Play network to test different types of ASIMs. This Mini PnP network will contain a set of modules from microcontrollers to FPGAs. Their performance will be tested by taking advantage of RAMPARTs placement within the Van Allen belts and measuring the effects this highly radiated environment will have on the components.

Scientist:
Dr. Dolores A. Black received her B.S. from the University of New Mexico in 1991, M.S from Vanderbilt University in 2006 and her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 2011 in electrical engineering.  After completing her B.S degree she worked in the aerospace industry in the areas of circuit design, FPGA and ASIC design for 15 years before returning to graduate school.  Her research interest is in soft error rate prediction as it applies to complex digital IC's, FPGA's and ASICs. This included research and development on the radiation effects for a lightly ionizing environment on complex integrated, analyzed the physics of particle interaction of semiconductor materials, developed a methodology and tools to evaluate the effects of an ion strike on a semiconductor using a Monte Carlo Radiative Environment tool, converting the charge deposited into a current threshold resulting in a voltage rail-to-rail strike analyzed via SPICE that would propagate a higher level analysis tool, such as ModelSim resulting in a complex IC’s soft error rate prediction. Her earlier research in accordance with her Master’s work included research and development of VHDL components to develop a hardware-software co-design environment for a Single Processing Platform (SPP). She is a member of IEEE.

Scientist:
Dr. Alonzo Vera received M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico in 2004 and 2008 respectively. Since then, he has specialized in embedded system design for aerospace applications and dynamic partial reconfiguration applications using FPGAs. He has worked on radiation effects mitigation techniques for FPGA-based systems and custom ASICs as well as radiation effects testing at different facilities around the country.  Dr. Vera has numerous publications in conferences and journals. Dr. Vera has also been an invited lecturer on digital design and digital signal processing using FPGAs in numerous countries across Latin America. His current areas of interest are reconfigurable computing, digital signal processing and cognitive radio.