Monica is pursuing a Masters Degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC Davis with a focus on controls and automation. She has a passion for growing plants and engineering automated systems. During her undergraduate years, she was president of the chemical engineering club and led the Chem-E-Car team at NJIT. She explored projects ranging from microfluidic medical devices to lead-acid batteries to petroleum processing plants.
Monica has always gravitated towards engineering projects that involved mechatronics and space exploration. At NASA's Kennedy Space Center, she helped investigate the effects of different lighting systems on lettuce growth for potential food production in space. At NASA's Johnson Space Center, Monica worked on UV bioreactors and prototype water monitors to supplement water recovery systems. This sparked her research interests in environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS). At the HRVIP lab, she will continue to explore this field.
- B.S. Chemical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 2019
- M.S. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UC Davis, 2022
- "Modeling and Simulation of Carbon Dioxide Removal for Environmental Control and Life Support Systems for Deep Space Habitats", Thesis, UC Davis, 2022
- "Generating Anomalous Regenerable CO2 Removal System Data for Environmental Control and Life Support System Self-Awareness", International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2022
- "Estimation of System States for Non-Measured Parameters and Integration with a Digital Twin framework to Boost Spacecraft Autonomy and Awareness", International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2022