Christopher A. GaleaDr. Galea is Chief Scientist at Princeton Satellite Systems. He has an S.B. from MIT in Aerospace Engineering and Physics (2016) and a Ph.D. from Princeton University in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with a specialization in Applied Physics (221).

At PSS, Dr. Galea is responsible for research and development in plasma physics for fusion applications, designing power electronics for plasmas, and aerospace technology development and modeling. He was recently the PI on the DOE SBIR project ``High-Efficiency RF Amplifiers with Plasma Accommodation for Fusion Plasma Heating,'' where he designed and developed Class-E RF amplifiers for handling plasma loads. He has additionally been supported by grants from ARPA-E and the DoD. Under ARPA-E GAMOW, Dr. Galea made a plasma-circuit model for capturing effects of plasma on power electronics, and designed and tested a Load Switch PCB board for pulse generation. On the PFRC-2 experiment, he has operated and analyzed the X-ray silicon drift detector diagnostic for electron energy distribution measurements, and has presented his work at APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) and High Temperature Plasma Diagnostics (HTPD) conferences.

Dr. Galea completed his Ph.D. thesis on ``Coherent Microwave Scattering from Laser-Generated Plasma in External Magnetic Field and Weakly Ionized Plasma Environments,'' where he investigated the implementation of a laser- and microwave-based diagnostic technique in novel environments relevant to plasma propulsion and remote sensing applications. A primary finding in his thesis was the discovery of magnetically induced depolarization of the microwaves when scattering from a small plasma in a magnetic field, which allows one to perform remote local vector magnetic field measurements. In summer 2020, Dr. Galea interned at Facebook Reality Labs Research as a researcher in optical engineering, where he designed and modeled technological developments for Augmented Reality glasses. During his time at MIT, Dr. Galea conducted research at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, the MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory, and the Fluid Mechanics and Aerospace Propulsion group at the Polytechnic University of Madrid in Spain. The corresponding research projects he worked on include: computational modeling and experimental testing of high-temperature superconducting tapes for fusion reactor applications, the design and construction of a surrogate stream-wise pressure gradient apparatus to model conditions in turbofan engines, and the development of a droplet vaporization model for fuel sprays in internal combustion engines. It was also during his time at MIT that he first interned at Princeton Satellite Systems, where he was introduced to the Direct Fusion Drive project that he is working on today. Read More Read Less