Alex Miller

Alex Miller applies multidisciplinary engineering and science skills to further technology for exploring harsh environments both on Earth and in space while looking for ways to increase human sustainability.

Alex’s thesis work has two components, the first investigates whether passive thermosiphons in West Antarctic glaciers may be used as a possible intervention to reduce the possibility of marine ice shelf instability. The other part is developing electrostatic motors (as opposed to motors using magnetism). Alex also has a side project developing a siesmo-geodetic ice penetrator (SGIP), an air-dropped system to deliver a high-sensitivity seismometer to an Antarctic ice shelf for obtaining high-time-resolution data of resonant forcings from ocean waves. For this project, Alex modeled the interaction of the instruments and the system, based in the Ross Ice Shelf, will transmit data for further analysis.

As an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Alex majored in electrical engineering and computer science as well as physics, researching deployable lunar tower infrastructure and signal processing for physical oceanography. Alex has pursued internships at Wing (formerly part of Google X), Microsoft Research’s Applied Sciences Group, DeepMind Robotics Team, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Science Helicopter autonomy team, cultivating technical skills in controls, digital electronics design, reinforcement learning, embedded systems, and space systems engineering.

While at MIT, Alex studied cello through the Emerson Scholarship program, Chamber Music Society, and the New England Conservatory’s Continuing Education program.

​Outside of research activities, Alex enjoys bicycling, designing whimsical objects, thinking about intentional community and baking.