Industry Panel

Bio

Jonathan Arenberg the Chief Mission Architect for Science and Robotic Exploration at Northrop Grumman. His work experience includes optical, space and laser systems, astronomical programs such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory, James Webb Space Telescope and the Starshade concept in development for the direct imaging of extra-solar planets, which he co-invented. His current assignments include technology and architecture for the Habitable Worlds Observatory.  Dr. Arenberg holds a BS in physics and an MS and PhD in engineering, all from the University of California, Los Angeles.  He is widely published and holds 15 European and U.S. Patents in a wide variety of areas of technology.  Dr. Arenberg is an SPIE Fellow and an Associate Fellow of the AIAA.

Bio

Pavani leads the North America Electromagnetics & Power Systems Application Engineering team at Ansys, part of Synopsys, driving business and technology strategies. With over 18 years of technical expertise in electromagnetics, multiphysics, and system solutions across industries such as automotive, consumer electronics, aerospace & defense, and energy, her experience spans a variety of fields, including electric machines, power electronics, wireless charging, actuators, transformers and AI augmented physics solutions. Pavani is a Senior Member of IEEE, holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Louisiana State University and is the author of multiple IEEE publications.

Bio

Kelli McCoy is a Senior Systems Engineer in the AI Leadership Group at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working at the intersection of systems engineering, generative AI, uncertainty quantification, and digital engineering. She is the architect for JPL’s Systems Engineering AI Lab, a suite of GenAI tools supporting requirements analysis, design ideation, risk assessment, and engineering decision support. Kelli recently received her PhD from USC, after working across three NASA centers over her 20-year career.

Bio

Dr. Cosmin Safta is a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. His research focuses on developing computational methods for complex systems analysis, with current work spanning uncertainty quantification for large-scale AI/ML models and statistical approaches to adversarial machine learning. Dr. Safta's work advances interdisciplinary efforts that bridge rigorous mathematical algorithms with engineering applications, maintaining a consistent focus on algorithm development and implementation for real-world problems including combustion, earth system modeling, epidemiology and biosurveillance, power grids, material science, and stochastic network models.