Joseph Miles

One activity that has spanned the last ten years is mentoring groups of students (6 to 12 students, depending on the year) for the construction of a sounding rocket payload. The teams can devise an experiment of their own choosing, construct it, and then test their experiment during a launch that reaches elevations up to 75 miles above earth. As the world anticipates human travel to Mars and commercial space flight, Stevens students participate in their own space endeavor as part of NASA’s Rock SAT-C program, a program that invites students from universities across the country to build their own experimental payloads. The NASA sponsored Rock SAT-C program is annually funded at about $30,000 per year to defray the costs of payload design, delivery, travel and lodging for the participants. The Stevens team, comprised of both undergraduate and graduate students, works on a year-long project culminating in a rocket launch in June at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. While launching a payload with experiments on a Terrier-improved Orion sounding rocket is an exciting accomplishment, the real value is in the process leading up to the launch. The team goes through the same design review process that NASA engineers go through — six design reviews. The students learn that space is a harsh environment. They find out that one can have yearlong plans go wrong and then must figure out what to do the next time around. Some students say that the sounding rocket project is harder than their senior design project.

Professor Miles has over 40 years corporate experience as a manager of both resources and projects with an International scope in the manufacturing and financial industries. Typical project activities included Information Technology, Finance, Environmental Health and Safety Applications and Human Resources. Project Manager of software development projects in various disciplines with a $3.00 MM/year budget and management of five personnel at the Mobil Oil Corporation.

-----Faculty member responsible for teaching The Engineering Design Spine with topics in Robotics (C++), Data Acquisition (LabVIEW), Truss & Beam Construction (MATLAB), and Electronics (MATLAB/Simulink/Simscape); Approx. 150 to 190 students/ semester. The Engineering Design Spine uses an interdisciplinary approach, introducing the concepts of Systems Engineering to the Stevens undergraduate student body. Design I, II, III and IV focus on EE, ME, Computer Engineering and Project Management.

-----New Jersey Statewide Program Director of the New Jersey Space Grant Consortium at Stevens Institute of Technology. Developed and constructed sounding rocket payloads in conjunction with a student team for launch by the NASA Wallops Island Facility.

-----Managed the annual summer outreach NASA-GISS program at Stevens for 3-4 Research Associates.

-----Prior industrial experience at The Mobil Oil Corporation as a project manager with an International scope in the manufacturing and financial industries. Typical project activities included Information Technology, Finance, Environmental Health and Safety Applications and Human Resources. Project Manager of software development projects in various disciplines with a $3.0 MM/year budget and management of five personnel.

Associate Professor of Engineering 2004 to Present

The Engineering Design Spine, which I teach at Stevens Institute of Technology, includes Innovation and Entrepreneurship as one of its core competencies.

Professor Miles is the Program Director of The New Jersey Space Grant Consortium. This is a NASA-funded program in existence for approximately 30 years which funds educational programs throughout the State of New Jersey (as well as all other states, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico). New Jersey Space Grant funds undergraduate and graduate fellowships, a research clusters program at participating institutions, K-12 to college bridge programs, informal education programs, rocketry and ballooning programs, faculty and course development, travel support, Community College Research and K-12 teacher training, to name a few. The statewide budget is approximately $800,000 per year.

Engineering Design I, II, III & IV courses in Robotics (C++), Data Acquisition (LabVIEW), Truss & Beam Construction, and Electronics (MATLAB/Simulink); Approx. 150 to 190 students/semester. The Engineering Design Spine uses an inter-disciplinary approach, introducing the concepts of Systems Engineering to the Stevens undergraduate student body. Design I, II, III and IV focus on EE, ME, Computer Software & Engineering and Project Management.