Peter Theodore Boris · Stanford University
Building a subscale, pressure-fed liquid rocket propulsion module to study leak onset across repeated thermal cycling and vibration. The core question: can indirect signals — pressure micro-fluctuations, acoustic emissions, thermal gradients — identify leaks before they become mission-ending? Executed at Impulse Space with access to cryogenic handling infrastructure and fabrication resources.
Reinforcement-learning locomotion policies for operation in Martian cave systems, supervised by Prof. Marco Pavone at Stanford's Autonomous Systems Lab. When the original hardware kit failed, I raised $20K to rebuild the system from scratch — which led to a deeper understanding of where the design assumptions broke down. Secured $50K in additional external funding for hardware upgrades.
Built an iOS app that automates camera control during solar eclipse totality, solving a hard constraint: cameras can't be manually operated fast enough during the 2–4 minute totality window. Developed in the field after experiencing the limitation firsthand during expedition work.
Designed and executed a total solar eclipse livestream from Union Glacier, Antarctica as part of a three-person team. Two weeks in an unheated tent at −25°C. The stream reached 40 million viewers globally — the first 8K eclipse broadcast from the continent. Built the imaging and transmission systems that made it work in those conditions.
Designed and built a custom spectrograph to measure 777 nm oxygen emissions during the Osiris-REx sample return capsule re-entry over Nevada. The instrument supported research on atmospheric plasma physics and spacecraft re-entry dynamics in collaboration with the NASA-HORIS mission team.