2022 Extreme Terrain Mobility Challenge Judges

Dr. Adrian Stoica
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
2021 BIG Idea Challenge Chairman

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Dr. Adrian Stoica is a Senior Research Scientist and Principal at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has 35 years of R&D experience, the last 25 years at JPL, where he developed technologies in electronics, computing, human-oriented systems, autonomy, and robotics, with funding from NASA, DARPA and other government agencies. For ten years he managed one of the JPL robotics groups and now supports the Office of Strategic Planning. He is a NIAC Fellow. An IEEE member for over 30 years, he served in leadership roles in the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society, IEEE Systems Council and in IEEE Future Directions Committee. His space oriented interests revolve around using robots in support of human missions, and building the infrastructure that will help the start of a lunar economy.

Kevin Kempton
NASA Langley Research Center

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Kevin Kempton currently works with the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) team and provides technical support for many crowdsourcing projects. He also supports the Game Changing Development Program as a Program Element Manager supporting technology development projects. While supporting CoECI and GCD, Kevin recently led several concept studies such as the Mars Ice Home habitat, the Advanced Lightweight Lunar Gantry for Operations (ALLGO), and the Lunar Torch mobile lunar heliostat. Mr. Kempton was also the PI for a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program study called PHLOTE (Phobos L1 Operational Tether Experiment).

Previously, Mr. Kempton was the project manager for the Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) Sensor Development at Langley where he planned and supported the integration and flight test campaigns that led up to the successful flight test of the ALHAT system on the Morpheus vehicle at KSC. Before ALHAT, Mr. Kempton was the Lead Systems Engineer for the CLARREO Climate Mission Development. He also served as the Lead Systems Engineer and Verification Manager for the Ares I-X Demonstration Flight Test and was awarded the NASA Exceptional Achievement Award as well as the Space Flight Awareness Award for leadership and innovations in systems engineering.

Jennifer Lopez
Astrobotic Technology

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Jennifer Lopez leads commercial lunar payloads as the Director of Business Development, Commercial and Civil Space at Astrobotic Technology, Inc. – a space robotics and lunar logistics company that provides full service, end-to-end payload delivery to the Moon. As one of the first lunar lander providers selected by NASA through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program and with three booked lunar surface missions, Astrobotic is enabling customers to unlock the Moon’s potential in resource development, scientific investigation, technology demonstration, exploration, and settlement.

Prior to Astrobotic, Jennifer served as the Technology Lead in Commercial Innovation and Sponsored Programs with the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory for almost 4 years, where she identified, developed, and fostered space-based R&D and breakthrough technological innovations. Research areas under her leadership included space systems, in- space manufacturing, robotics, AI and other emerging technologies aimed to maximize utilization of the ISS for terrestrial benefit and help pave the way toward commercialization in low Earth orbit and future orbiting platforms.

Jennifer serves on the RESOURCE (Resources for Exploration & Science of OUR Cosmic Environment) team, a project funded by NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) to determine types of volatiles for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) on the Moon. Jennifer also serves on the Advisory Council of the Physics & Astronomy Department at Johns Hopkins University – a world leader in groundbreaking research in condensed matter physics, particle physics, astronomy, and astrophysics. She is a Founding Member of the NASA Datanaut Corps program at NASA Headquarters and is a National Geographic Explorer.

Trent Martin
Intuitive Machines

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Trent Martin has spent nearly 30 years helping to steward engineering, scientific, technical, business and international teams through the maze of space flight hardware development, test, launch and operations and managing large groups of people in the both aerospace and IT technology industries. Mr. Martin believes in a fail forward approach to space hardware development.

Mr. Martin is currently the Vice President of Space Systems as Intuitive Machines where he manages all aspects of products and services for the Aerospace Division. He is also the program manager for the IM Lunar Payload and Data services Program. Prior to that, he was the Vice President of the Aerospace Science, Engineering, and Technology Division at Business Integra Technology Solutions/SciSpace. Mr. Martin has also worked for NASA JSC and Lockheed Martin as the Engineering Directorate Associate Director for Advanced Development Projects, where he earned a Silver Snoopy award.

Trent Martin received his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas, and his Masters of Business Administration from the University of Houston Clear Lake.

Dr. Marco Quadrelli
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Dr. Marco B. Quadrelli is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff and the group supervisor of the Robotics Modeling and Simulation Group at JPL, where he has worked since 1997 on multiple flight projects and research programs. His research interests include computational multibody dynamics, tethered space systems and large space structures, planetary entry, descent and landing, distributed spacecraft and robotic system, granular media, and biomedical systems. He has a Laurea degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Padova (Italy), a M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech, and is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, a NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts Fellow.

Dr. Eddie Tunstel
Motiv Space Systems

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Dr. Eddie Tunstel is the Chief Technology Officer at Motiv Space Systems, Inc., which focuses on space & ground robotics as well as motion control avionics. He was recently Associate Director for Robotics at Raytheon Technologies Research Center leading a research group developing technologies to enable robotic autonomy and human-collaborative capabilities for manufacturing and service applications. He previously spent 10 years at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) as a Senior Roboticist in its Intelligent Systems Center and as Space Robotics & Autonomous Control Lead in its Space Department. He was involved in modular open systems architecture development efforts supporting advanced bomb disposal robotics programs as well as robotics and autonomy research for future national security and space applications, including mobility on Mars, the moon, and asteroids.

Prior to APL, he was with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 18 years as a Senior Robotics Engineer and Group Leader of its Advanced Robotic Controls Group. He worked on the Mars Exploration Rovers mission as both a flight systems engineer responsible for autonomous navigation and associated V&V, and as rover engineering team lead for rover mobility and robotic arm subsystems during surface mission operations on Mars. He earned B.S. and M.E. degrees in mechanical engineering from Howard University and the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of New Mexico. He is a Fellow of IEEE with over 170 technical publications

Dr. Vandi Verma
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Dr. Vandi Verma is the Deputy Section Manager for the Mobility & Robotics section at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. She also serves as Chief Engineer of Robotic Operations for Mars 2020. She was the Assistant Section Manager of the Mobility & Robotics section, the Supervisor of the Section Staff Group, and the Supervisor of the Operable Robotics Group. She specializes in space robotics, autonomous robots and robotic operations. She has worked on a number of Space Robotics and Artificial Intelligence research and technology development tasks and has designed, developed, and operated rovers on Mars, the Arctic, Antarctica, and the Atacama Desert.

She holds a Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and has been working at NASA since 2004. She works on new space robotics capabilities from early design, through development, testing and launch, to landing and surface operations. As Assistant Section Manager for Mobility and Robotics she helps lead about 150 JPL roboticists developing new technology for future missions and working on a variety of JPL robotic missions. The Mars Ingenuity Helicopter technology is an example of the kind of innovation developed by JPL Robotics.

Since 2008 she has been driving rovers on Mars (Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance) and operating the robotic arm and sampling system. She has also been a Helicopter Integration Engineer for the Mars Ingenuity helicopter. She has designed and programmed flight software that runs onboard Curiosity and Perseverance, and simulation software used in Mars operations. She works on autonomous robotic arm positioning and autonomous science targeting for Perseverance.