Two Metis Technology Solutions (Metis) employees, Dr. Jie Li and Demetrios Katsaduros, have received NASA Ames Research Center Honor Awards. Ames Honor Awards are among the most prestigious honors personnel at NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) can receive as the award process begins with an in-depth peer nomination and winners are ultimately determined by a committee consisting of NASA ARC personnel. Dr. Li received his Honor Award for his contributions to NASA’s Unsteady Pressure-Sensitive Paint (uPSP) technology development program, and Mr. Katsaduros received his Honor Award for work on the High Density Vertiplex (HDV) project.
“I want to personally congratulate Jie and Demetrios for receiving their NASA Ames Honor Awards,” said Joy Colucci, CEO and owner of Metis. “At Metis we are very familiar with the exceptional and groundbreaking work Demetrios and Jie contribute daily. It’s rewarding that our NASA customer has also officially celebrated their achievements with these most distinguished awards, bringing Jie and Demetrious’s significant accomplishments to the attention of their peers and the broader aerospace science community.”
The HDV project seeks to develop and mature automation technologies that will eventually be used at vertiports servicing Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) vehicles, like civilian rotorcraft. Mr. Katsaduros received his nomination for his remarkable ability to learn and master the notoriously difficult MagicDraw Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tool in a short period of time and utilizing this new skill to advance HDV development. Mr. Katsaduros is the first person to use MagicDraw at ARC’s Aeronautics Directorate, applying the tool to execute systems engineering processes in a database-driven fashion.
uPSP technology is an emerging, highly technical tool used to measure the pressure distribution of wind on aerospace vehicles during wind tunnel testing. Dr. Li’s nominator for his Ames Honor Award specifically highlighted his contributions producing wavenumber-frequency analysis of uPSP measurements for use in the NASA Artemis missions, and demonstrating additional applications of uPSP technology.
Metis personnel currently support a variety of contracts at ARC. Dr. Li works on the Aerospace Testing and Facilities Operations and Maintenance (ATOM) contract, on which Metis serves as a significant subcontractor to Jacobs Engineering. Mr. Katsaduros is a member of the Technical Services for Aerospace Systems Modeling and Simulation (SimLabs) team, a prime contract managed by the Metis Flight Research Associates (MFRA) joint venture. As a subcontractor, Metis also has personnel on ARC’s Projects and Engineering Support Services (PESS) II contract primed by Axient, and the Aviation Safety Reporting System primed by Booz Allen Hamilton. At the company level, Metis has been recognized by ARC for superior services, winning the research center’s Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year award in 2019 (to MFRA), and Small Business Subcontractor of the Year award in 2016 and again in 2020.