Karl Roush

karl@karlroush.com

Leadership, Research, Service

Aerospace Engineer dedicated to advancing humanity's return to the moon!✈🚀🛰
Ground-level work on test rigs and assembly w/ high-flying research in hypersonics, satellites, & aircraft emissions.
Avid bike and Onewheel enthusiast always learning more about ML/AI, systems sustainment planning, and cybersecurity.

• • •

Active: Project/Component Engineer, High Pressure Turbomachinery @Aerojet Rocketdyne.
Concurrent: PhD AE, examining long duration sustainment of heritage technology reuse @GeorgiaTech
All of my publicly available data, documentations, and publications can be found at github.com/karoush

Everyone has a story and I'd love to hear yours- let's connect on social media!


Have feedback? Reach out via feedback@karlroush.com

Experience

Project Component Engineer

Aerojet Rocketdyne, L3Harris Technologies
  • Project management role coordinating internal stakeholders, customers, and suppliers to ensure on-time and cost effective hardware
  • Dedicated lead for >$1.2m of hardware and 50+ individual components
  • Non-conformance report focal, high pressure turbomachinery
  • Volunteer leadership role in "Learn, Launch, Play" ERG
  • Sending people back to the Moon :)
May 2021 - Present

Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ASDL)

Graduate Research Assistant
  • Design and Evaluation of a derivative engine model for supersonic transport aircraft
  • Test stand design and feasibility study of H2 fuel cell light aircraft
  • Evaluating Smart Airport technology use cases and prioritization in partnership with FAA, NIA, and OST
Fabrication Lead: Air Force Research Lab APOP
  • AFRL engineering and university outreach design competition using the Jet Cat P100-RX engine
  • Presented novel thrust vectoring measurement system at AIAA Propulsion & Energy Forum 2020
  • Responsible for the creation of all components for both testing and final design on the APOP team.
  • Increased the thrust/weight ratio of a small gas turbine engine by 13.67%
August 2018 - May 2022

417-DevOps

Founder, CEO
  • App development focusing on the Riot Games API
  • Large scale data analysis with ML/AI supplements
  • Goal is to educate others while showcasing the potential of untapped data
March 2021 - Present

Competitive Innovation Consultant

MindSumo, HeroX, Wazoku
  • Ranked #3 of 350,000+ solvers
  • Chosen as a winner for 93% of competitions (Mindsumo All-Star average= 20%)
  • Ranked 3rd Overall, 1st in Engineering, 1st in Science
  • Awarded wins from AAA, Mozilla, NASA, Siemens, GSK, et. al
May 2017 - Present

UTSR Gas Turbine Industrial Fellowship

Southwest Research Institute: Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy
  • Determined viability of hybrid cycle UAVs for ISR missions & created an NPSS tool for subsequent mission analysis
  • Designed and built laser PIV system for <10% of quoted industry cost for low speed turbulence testing
  • Standardized unit conversions in NPSS for international use
  • Streamlined data collection of drag testing (65% time reduction)
  • Created documentation for a 1960s era gas generator to expedite troubleshooting & testing
May 2019 - August 2019

Education

PhD, Aerospace Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology

Dissertation: Preliminary Design Framework for Heritage Technology Reuse in Long Duration Aerospace Operations and Sustainment
Qualification areas: Systems Design and Optimization (Fixed Wing Vehicles), Structural Mechanics and Materials

Master of Science, Aerospace Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology

Capstone work: "Development of a Modular, Python-Based Architecture for the Environmental Design Space (EDS)", i.e. creating a modular framework for preliminary aircraft design explorations
Research work in hypersonics, space based ISR, smart airports, & aviation emissions.

Methods

  • Advanced Design Methods
  • Systems of Systems Engineering Fundamentals
  • Numerical Analysis & Algorithms

Applications

  • Preliminary Aircraft Design
  • Experimental Design and Construction
  • Industrial Mathematics

Bachelor of Science, Aerospace Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology

Graduated with Highest Honors, ΣΓΤ Honor Society, AE BS/MS Accelerated Program
Major highlights below, *indicates graduate level

Propulsion

  • Propulsion System Design*
  • Advanced Aircraft Propulsion
  • Jet and Rocket Propulsion
  • Vehicle Performance

Computer Science

  • Optimization Design for Engineering Systems*
  • Cybersecurity Lecture series*

Mathematics

  • Probability and Statistics with Applications
  • Differential Equations

Controls

  • Dynamics and Controls
  • System Dynamics and Vibrations

Structures

  • Structural Analysis
  • Deformable Bodies
  • Engineering Materials

Fluids

  • Experimental Fluids and Solid Mechanics
  • Aerodynamics and Thermofluids

Oxford University

Mansfield College, University of Oxford

GT Study Abroad Program to learn first-hand through the lens of multiple European cultures.
Combined travel (music and arts focus) and residence in Oxford (AE focus).

Projects

Aerospace

Analysis of Aviation Emissions Policies
  • Analysis of key stakeholders' roadmaps to hit 2050 emissions targets
  • Identification of revolutionary technologies to aid in meeting these goals
  • Created attainability and readiness metric to compare technologies
Jet Engine Cycle Analysis & Optimization
  • Off-design cycle analysis of a separate flow turbofan in NPSS
  • Modified aforementioned model to statisfy numerous temperature and pressure contraints
  • Optimized engine parameters for longest range when mounted in a scaled version of the Boeing 737-800 to notionally represent a next generation, single-aisle class variants called the B737-MAX.
Engine Component Prelimary Design
  • Designed & optimized: compressor, combustor, and turbine of a small, single spool turbojet engine
  • Evaluated off-design performance, supporting design decisions

Computer Science

NASA Discovery 2: An NLP Driven Mission for Topic Generation from NASA Datasets
  • Wells Fargo Campus Analytics Challenge 2019 winner
  • Used Natural Language Processing to generate topics based on publicly available NASA dataset
  • The approach used extends beyond the popular LDA method to identify topics present in the data set descriptions.
  • Consequently, this method could be used to tag similar datasets or quantitatively determine the topical overlap.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) Semantris Solver
  • Uses a computer vision in combination with Merriam-Webster's Thesaurus API and an NLP model built from Google News data
  • Solves the Google Experiment Semantris
  • Revamped version of @pravj's project "semantris-solver" ,
Lifestyle Importance Weighted Carbon Footprint Reduction
  • Wells Fargo Campus Analytics Challenge 2018 winner
  • Built a machine learning model that recommends lifestyle changes to minimize carbon footprint without affecting life quality
  • Attended the 2019 Wells Fargo Analytics Summit to present to top level data wranglers
LoL Player Stats
  • Tool that returns numerous player stats from their League of Legends match history
  • Designed to be an introduction for data analysts in Esports
  • Utilizes Cassiopeia, a well-documented Python wrapper for the Riot API and provides clear use case examples
Positional Presence
  • Spent two days learning from scratch how to use the Riot Games API
  • Built a tool to determine the relative differences in role presence at an apex competitive level in the game League of Legends and compare across regions
  • Used statistical analysis to demonstrate the relative agency of each role and the difference in playstyles from regions ranging from North America to South Korea

Skills

Awards
  • AIAA Abe M. Zarem Graduate Student Award in Aeronautics for
    "Designing for Security: A Cybersecurity Introduction for Aerospace Education"
  • BS-AE Highest Honors, MS-AE
  • UTSR Gas Turbine Industrial Fellow (2019)

  • Eagle Scout Rank Award, Bronze Palm and Gold Palm
  • 3x Wells Fargo Campus Analytics Challenge Winner 2018-2022
  • International Best Use of Data- NASA Space Apps Hackathon (2016)
Certifications
  • Class 4 Laser Safety Certified
  • AE Machine Shop Certified

Soft Skills
  • Leadership
  • Logistics
  • Parts Acquisition
  • German, Spanish (ILR-2)

Engineering Tools
  • Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS)
  • C++, MATLAB
  • SolidWorks, Inventor
  • XFOIL and AVL
  • OpenVSP
  • Multidisciplinary design optimization
  • Mill, lathe, band saw, drill press, sanders
  • 3D Printing
Programming Languages
Design
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects
  • Blender

Involvement

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Professional Aerospace Technical Society


AIAA is the world’s largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession. Served as GT Student Chapter Chair and Graduate Liason.

GreyHat

Information security club
Vice President (2019-20), External Comm Admin (2018-19)


GreyHat is GT's cyber security club, hosting lecturers and lessons with a goal of teaching practical skills in analyzing, exploiting, and defending computer systems, along with reverse engineering of applications.

HyTech Racing, Aero-composites

Georgia Tech's Formula Student Electric Team
HyTech Racing is an award-winning student-run organization dedicated to furthering students' engineering experience through the rigorous design and development of Formula SAE electric vehicles.

Scouting at GT

Georgia Tech club for Scouts
A group for former Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to continue their scouting lives at Georgia Tech by initiating and taking part in adventure and service opportunities. We work to give back to the community.

Spare Time Sponges

Personal projects that soak a bunch of time. Highlights of completed works.

NVIDIA Real-time Ray Tracing with RTX On Contest
  • View the images
  • Utilized Blender’s Cycles rendering engine to demonstrate the importance of Thermal Management Systems
  • Modeled three (space, air ground) systems to demonstrate the varying reflectivities of spacecraft
  • Entered as part of NVIDIA's GTC RTX On contest
Titanfall Smart Pistol MK5
  • Designed, modeled, and constructed a replicate Titanfall Smart Pistol MK5
  • ABS plastic components with 1,820+ hours of 3D printing time
  • Currently re-designing with tighter tolerances and embedded electronics
Image compositing & Facial Recognition Cloaking
  • View the image
  • Cloned myself in one image using Photoshop
  • Deployed image cloaking to thwart facial recognition algorithms via Fawkes
Metal Forge
  • Developed a small-scale metal melting forge, for usage in other personal projects
  • Currently re-designing to increase heat retention and efficiency