The Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory employs an average of 6 graduate student researchers, 3 undergraduates, and 2 full time staff members.
Bonnie Wade |ACSL Lab Manager|
Bonnie Wade joined the Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory (ACSL) in the fall of 2007 as a junior undergraduate in the Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering program at the University of Washington. After receiving her BS in 2009, she continued directly into graduate school pursuing a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Paolo Feraboli in the ACSL. Her research focuses on the crashworthiness of composite vehicle structures, both for experimental crash testing and numerical modeling of crash events. She recently passed her PhD Qualifying Exam and expects to graduate in 2014. As a veteran student in the ACSL, she is currently the Laboratory Manager and oversees daily laboratory activities.
Since 2009, Bonnie has coauthored five journal papers and presented her work at ASC and AIAA conferences, as well as CMH-17 and AMTAS meetings. She is the recipient of the NASA SURP Grant in 2008, the Dean’s Undergraduate Research Award in 2008, the Dale and Marjorie Myers Scholarship in 2009, and the Louis and Katherine Marsh Fellowship in 2010. Bonnie was also the President of the AIAA UW student chapter for the class of 2009.
Frederico Gasco |Ph.D Research Assistant|
Federico Gasco joined the Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory (ACSL) in 2009, and he is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at the University of Washington, and a Research Assistant at the ACSL under the doctoral advising of Professor Paolo Feraboli. His research focuses on the integration of thin film Li-ion batteries into structural composite laminates, within a MURI research program funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and on the development of wireless sensors for composite testing, health monitoring and repair in conjunction with Boeing and Intel. He holds a M. S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino University, Turin, Italy.
Sam Zambrana |Research Engineer|
Sam Zambrana joined the Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory (ACSL) in the summer 2010 as a Research Engineer. He started working in the lab after receiving his BSAA and MSAA from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics here at UW. He is the most experienced and veteran permanent staff engineer of the lab. His duties include operating all equipment in the manufacturing and characterization facility, and supervising undergraduates and junior graduate students in their operations. He is particularly experienced in the area of mechanical testing of composite materials and joints under different load conditions.
Sam was born in Bolivia, now he resides in Seattle.
Max Spetzler |Ph.D Research Assistant|
Max Spetzler was born in Germany and received his ‘Diplom-Ingenieur’ degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Stuttgart in 2010. After working at the University’s Institute of Space Systems, he moved to Seattle in Fall 2011, where he joined the Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory (ACSL) as Ph.D. student. Max is currently working under FAA and Boeing funding project that aims to generate guidelines concerning the crashworthiness certification process of composite-intensive passenger airframes.
In the past, Max has lived in Sydney, Australia, where he participated in the crashworthiness research conducted by, a group at the University of New South Wales. He has been awarded scholarships by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Hermann-Reissner-Stiftung.
Oliver Marquart |Research Engineer Intern|
Oliver Marquardt is enrolled at the University of Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany. He joined the Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory (ACSL) as a visiting research intern in October 2011, to work on his master thesis. In the context of soft body impacts on composites structures, he focuses on the characterization of deformable projectiles such as; artificial hail or birds. After his six-month stay, he will go back to Germany and graduate as ‘Diplom-Ingenieur’, in aerospace engineering. Oliver has been awarded a scholarship by the Erich-Becker-Stiftung.
Narumi Watanabe |Undergraduate Research Assistant|
Narumi Watanabe was born in Japan and moved to the United States in the winter of 2003. She is currently in her junior year of the Aeronautics and Astronautics program at the UW. She began working in the ACSL in March of 2011 and has been involved in mechanical testing of novel composite material forms and in developing metrics for assessing the Class A surface of composite panels.
Borui Xu |Undergraduate Research Assistant|
Borui Xu was born in China and received his International Baccalaureate Diploma from Skyline High School in 2011 in Issaquah, WA. He began working at the ACSL as an intern during the summers of 2009 and 2010, during which he helped construct the Impact Dynamics Research Facility. Starting summer 2011, he enrolled at UW as a freshman and started working part-time at the ACSL as Undergraduate Student Assistant. He is now working on fabricating fiber-reinforced composite panels and performing simulated lightning strike and hail impact tests.