Behrad Vatankhahghadim

Behrad Vatankhahghadim obtained his PhD in Aerospace Science and Engineering in 2021 from the University of Toronto in Canada, where he had previously received the MASc in Aerospace Science and Engineering and the BASc in Engineering Science degrees in 2016 and 2014, respectively. His doctoral research was on deployment dynamics of solar sails. He was a casual employee at the Canadian Space Agency in Montreál in 2018, working on deorbiting applications of electrodynamic tethers, and held industrial internships at UTC Aerospace Systems and Brican Flight Systems.

After his doctoral studies, Behrad joined the University of Toronto Space Flight Laboratory as a research associate in guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) of real microsatellite missions in 2021. He subsequently moved to Italy for a 2-year postdoctoral project at the Politecnico di Milano, partly funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). He is now based in Spain as of 2024, having joined the Aerospace Engineering Department of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) as an assistant professor (visiting).

Behrad’s current research interests are in the domain of spacecraft dynamics and control: hybrid systems, electrodynamic tethers, solar sails, astrodynamics and GNC. In addition to leading his own research on hybrid attitude control of multibody systems, he is actively involved in the E.T.PACK-F and E.T.COMPACT projects, and offers technical and supervisory support to ST3LLARsat-1 “BOIRA” as well.