instructors

instructional team

This is the 18th year (sorry, we skipped 2020) we are teaching this highly successful COSMOS cluster! Our instructional team for 2023 consists of faculty and a PhD student of the Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), a Teacher fellow, a manager of the MAE Design Studio and 3 cluster Teaching Assistants (TAs).

The instructional team for 2022 is:

Prof. Raymond de Callafon (MAE Instructor 2005-2023)
Aditya Mishra (MAE co-instructor 2022 and 2023)
Mr. Daniel Rowe (Teacher Fellow 2023)

Manager of the MAE Design Studio:

Mr. Chris Cassidy

Cluster Teaching Assistants for the 2023 COSMOS program:

Brett Angeles
Daniel Kim
Patrick Rantins

past instructors

During the last years we were fortunate to have wonderful and experience Teacher Fellows and Teaching Assistants helping us with our COSMOS cluster. Here we like to give credit to our past instructors that made our COSMOS cluster such a a success.

During the 2006 COSMOS program, our teacher fellow was Mrs. Carranza and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Alex Simpkins and Daniel Johnson.
During the 2007 COSMOS program, our teacher fellow was Brooks Park and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Joey Sorrentino and again Alex Simpkins.
During the 2008 COSMOS program, our teacher fellow Brooks Park returned with us and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Jason Baker and Scott Fall.
During the 2009 COSMOS program, our teacher fellow was Brinn Belyea and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Zac Dool and Evan Woolley.
During the 2010 COSMOS program, our teacher fellow was Tammy Neuhaus and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Miles Syverud and Elisa Shiosaki.
During both the 2011 and 2012 COSMOS program, Brooks Park returned as our teacher fellow bringing back his valuable experience as a former teacher fellow during the 2010 and 2012 summer programs. During 2011, Kyle Hamilton and Shannon Lai were our Teaching Assistants, while in 2012 Daneesha (Danee) Kenyon and Brian Miller were our Teaching Assistants. Daneesha was in our COSMOS programs a few years ago and we were happy to see a COSMOS alumni coming back as a Teaching Assistant.
During the 2013 COSMOS program, our teacher fellow was Bryn Bishop and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Naomi Diep and Edwin Wong.
During the 2014 COSMOS program, our teacher fellow was David Evers and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Elizabeth Huang and Jorge Ruiz (2010 UCSD COSMOS Alumnus).
During the 2015 COSMOS program, Brooks Park returned as our teacher fellow (2007, 2011, 2012 and 2015) and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Madeline Ocampo (COSMOS Alumna, Santa Cruz) and Ivan Voroshilov.
During the 2016 COSMOS program, Mrs. Bryn Bishop returned as our teacher fellow (2013 and 2016) and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Jackie First and Jayant Mathur.
During the 2017 COSMOS program, Mr. Brinn Belyea returned as our teacher fellow (2009 and 2017) and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Robert Bacon, Marshall Garcia and Marika Hale.
During the 2018 COSMOS program, Mr. Octavio Ortiz was our teacher fellow and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Michael Bagherpour and Sara Tran, while also Mark Hansen helped us during our daily COSMOS activities.
During the 2019 COSMOS program, Mrs. Noura Al Qatarneh was our teacher fellow and our cluster Teaching Assistants were Rodrigo Chavez and Jackie Zheng.
During the 2021 (online) COSMOS program, Mr. Vahid Asgharzadeh-Fozi was our teacher fellow and we had 5 cluster Teaching Assistants to support the on-line program: Zhuowei (Aedan) Chen, Nathan Chiu, Zachary Daley, Tara Len and Victor Leung.
Finally, during the 2022 COSMOS program, Mr. JP Montello was our teacher fellow and our 3 cluster Teaching Assistants were Jason Howard, Zongnan (Tony) Wang and Josephine (Seph) Shia.

bios

Prof. Raymond A. de Callafon

Prof. de Callafon teaches classes in the area of Dynamic Systems and Control. His expertise is used in this cluster to help students derive mathematical models to describe the swinging of the pendulum clock and the dynamics (kinematics) of the marbles running through the kinetic sculpture. He also teaches the students how to simulate (2D) mechanical dynamics and how to change the dynamics by feeding back measurements and control forces acting on the mechanical system. These principles are applied by Prof. de Callafon in this COSMOS Cluster on Engineering Design and Kinetic Sculptures by programming an embedded system to process sensor information and control motors. For more information, visit also his personal webpage.

Prof. Nathan Delson

Dr. Delson teaches many of the (undergraduate) design courses at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He has a PhD in robots from MIT and uses his passion for building robotic systems in this cluster to teach students many of the main design concepts. Robotics components reappear in the design of the kinetic sculptures when students use actuators to modify the behavior of the sculpture.

Dr. Jack Silberman

Dr. Silberman has over 20 years experience in automation and robotics. He started working in robotics while pursuing his B.S. in electrical engineering. Dr. Silberman did robotics post graduate work in England, he holds a master's degree from PUC-Rio in mechanical engineering, and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University where his research was on mobile field robotics reliability. Jack has worked in educational robotics, NASA sponsored mobile field robotics, semiconductor automation, biotech, and medical devices.

Mr. Chris Cassidy

Chris Cassidy also co-teaches many of the (undergraduate) design courses at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. In addition, Chris runs the MAE Design Studio where most of the students of our cluster will use the LaserCAMM and the other machining tools to manufacture our clocks and parts for our kinetic sculptures. Chris has also many fun hobbies in which engineering design plays an important role and you can see more on his personal webpage.

Mr. Daniel Rowe (2023 COSMOS teacher fellow)

MR. Daniel Rowe is a physics teacher and high jump coach at Torrey Pines High School. He holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Cal Poly Pomona and has 5 years of industry experience before becoming a teacher. He is currently starting his 5th year as a teacher at Torrey Pines and loves to travel, visiting over 20 countries so far.

Mr. JP Montello (2022 COSMOS teacher fellow)

Mr. Montello is a teacher at School for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SET) High. He has industry experience from Orbital ATK/Northrop Grumman and has previous teaching experience at High Tech High. In his free time he loves to tinker and experiment. He has build solid fuel rocket motors, a little Jet Pack and worked with a laser table with optic/laser ablation experiments. One of his rockets was featured on the TV show Outrageous Acts of Science.

Mr. Vahid Asgharzadeh-Fozi (2021 COSMOS teacher fellow)

Mr. Fozi is a San Diego native, a TPHS Grad and studied Chemistry and Physics at UC Berkeley (BS in Chem 2001) and Science Education at Stanford (MA in Teaching 2008). He has worked at the LBL Cyclotron and Scripps Institute of Oceanography but is now in his 18th year teaching high school. In terms of teaching, he has taught at High Tech High and Summa Education and is currently teaching AP Chemistry and Physics at the Preuss School UC San Diego.

Mrs. Noura Alqatarneh (2019 COSMOS teacher fellow)

Noura Alqatarneh teaches, volunteers, coaches teachers, and develops curricula and course content for different schools in San Diego county. She taught mathematics under various frameworks, including the IB, IGCSE, SAT, and AP. Noura earned a B.S. in Mathematics in 2008 from the University of Jordan, and a MA in Educational Leadership from SDSU in 2015. Her active involvement in design thinking has helped her adopt practices and skills that are essential for the 21st century learner.

Mr. Brinn Belyea (2009 and 2017 COSMOS teacher fellow)

Brinn Belyea is a science teacher at Torrey Pines High School. He formerly taught at University City High School. He received his BS in chemistry from the University of Nevada-Reno in 1997, an MS in chemistry in 1999 from Stanford and a teaching credential from UCSD in 2003. He is active in Science Olympiad, GSDSEF science Fair and the Academic Team at Torrey Pines. During COSMOS 2009 Brinn helped for the second year as a COSMOS teacher fellow, but the first time for Cluster 2 and returned to our Cluster in 2017.

Mr. Brooks Brooks Park (2007, 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2015 COSMOS teacher fellow)

Brooks Park has joined our COSMOS cluster several times. Clearly, he comes with a valuable set of experience in teaching our COSMOS students. He received his B.A. from Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA and his Masters of Arts and Teaching from Tufts University, Medford, MA. He is currently teaching Physics and coaching the Upper School Robotics team at Pacific Ridge School. He has an excellent teaching record with more than 95% of his students passing the AP Physics B exam. His hobbies currently include music, hiking and backpacking, design and spending time with his family with two daughters.

Mr. David Evers (2014 COSMOS teacher fellow)

David Evers is the teacher fellow for the our COSMOS cluster during 2014, and while it was his first opportunity with our UCSD COMOS cluster, he had previous been a teacher fellow for the UCSD COSMOS Cluster 5 (Light). David is an alum of UCSD having earned his B.S. in physics and MEd in Education back before the Jacob's School existed. Prior to teaching David also worked at the Science Center in San Diego which is where he developed his interest in education. During the academic year, David teaches physics at La Costa Canyon High School in Carlsbad. His hobbies include traveling, movies, and playing with his kids!

Mrs. Bryn Bishop (2013, 2016 COSMOS teacher fellow)

Bryn Bishop was the teacher fellow for the our COSMOS cluster during 2013 and 2015. Bryn Bishop received her B.S. in Physics from UC Davis in 2005. After working in research in astrophysics for a couple of years, she discovered her passion for teaching and working with high school students. She currently teaches Physics, AP Physics B, and Robotics at Westview High School in San Diego. In addition to these, she has taught many other subjects including drawing, engineering, photography, English, and astronomy. Bryn is an active member of the American Association of Physics Teachers and the California Science Teachers Association.

Mrs. Tammy Neuhaus (2010 COSMOS teacher fellow)

Tammy Neuhaus has been teaching physics and AP Computer Science at Westview High School and is the advisor to the school's robotics club. Her computer class has a student gallery webpage demonstrating different student projects. She also taught at Torrey Pines HS and before becoming a teacher, she worked as an electrical engineer designing hardware and software for computers (at Unisys) and satellite communications systems (at Linkabit). She received a BSEE from Brown University in 1981 and Teaching Credential in Mathematics, Physics and Computer Concepts from USD in 1999.

Mr. Octavio Ortiz (2018 COSMOS teacher fellow)

Mr. Octavio Ortiz comes to us from the Imperial Valley where he has taught high school mathematics and computer science for the past 4 years. As a mathematics teacher, he constantly researches ways to complement procedural tasks with appropriate application problems. He believes that math comes alive when applied to real world problems. Although mathematics has been the main focus of his teaching profession, he’s seeking to expand the computer science program at Imperial High and would also like to teach physics. Prior to teaching, he worked at Northrop Grumman Corp in Rancho Bernardo as a Guidance, Navigation and Control Engineer.

Mrs. Carranza (2006 COSMOS teacher fellow)

Mrs. Carranza was the teacher fellow for our COSMOS cluster during 2006. She holds a bachelors in Mathematics Secondary Education from UCSD and completed the Teacher Education Program UCSD. In addition, during her tenure at COSMOS she had three years teaching experience at Gompers Secondary School, Prealgebra and two years at Lewis Middle School, Algebra and Geometry. She was working on her Master of Arts Degree in Mathematics from SDSU.

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