Zenith Fellow, Class of 2022
Queen's University, Bachelor of Engineering Physics ‘22
Host Organization: Sinclair Interplanetary by Rocket Lab
Mentor: Kyle Acierno

Alex is a recent graduate with a Bachelor of Engineering Physics from Queen's University. Growing up in a small town in Eastern Ontario (Williamstown), Alex has always been fascinated by the vastness of space and is passionate about space exploration.

Throughout his university career, Alex has continuously been involved on the Queen's Rocket Engineering Team at school. It was this team that first enabled him to put his passion for space exploration into action. His first major contribution to the team was as Payload lead. In this role, he developed a proof-of-concept dark matter detector that uses an array of cooled CMOS cameras to track particle trails in real-time. When a particle interacts with the atoms of the CMOS camera, it deposits some of its energy leaving behind a so-called "particle trail". From this data, known particle trails can be identified and removed, leaving only unknown particle trails. These unknown particle trails are then marked as candidates for dark matter and their properties can be extrapolated from the trail they make on the CMOS sensor.

In his fourth year, Alex took on the role of QRET's Chief Operations Officer. In this role, he oversaw the development of all technical projects, wrote grant applications, and completely overhauled the information management structure of the team. This new structure removes the barrier of knowledge-loss due to inevitable rapid turnover in undergraduate design teams.

Outside of his passion for space, Alex loves going for bike rides, singing, and making his own pizza. Alex hopes to develop his engineering skillset with a focus on electrical systems, software development, and mechanical design. He is elated to be joining Sinclair Interplanetary as a Zenith Canada Pathways Fellow this summer!