Ask an Aerospace Professional – 5-6 pm PST on December 4th

Students and young professionals – this is your chance to ask four professionals about their experiences working in the aerospace industry. Have you ever wondered how much use your engineering degree is when you enter the workforce? Or what might make you successful once the answer to your engineering problems are no longer in the back of the book?

Join us for an interactive Zoom session, hosted by Matthieu Masquelet, PNW AIAA vice chair, and engineer at Blue Origin. Guests for this panel session are:

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Chris Roberdeau

Director – Program Management Office for the Cabin Electronics division of Astronics Advanced Electronic Systems (AAES).

Chris currently serves as the Director of the Program Management Office at Astronics Advanced Electronics Systems in Kirkland, WA where he has P&L responsibility for the Cabin Electronics Division. In this role, he is responsible for meeting customer commitments to global airlines and developing strategies for growing the business through organic and external growth channels.

Prior to this role, he was at Boeing for over 15 years. At Boeing, he had progressively increasing leadership responsibility culminating as Chief of Staff for the Phantom Works division – a $1.5B division of Boeing Defense.

Chris has succeeded by focusing on the following key areas:
– Identifying growth opportunities to grow new business areas or reinvigorate stagnant businesses;
– Focusing on long-term financials;
– Orienting teams toward results and not just activity;
– Keeping things simple and avoiding unnecessary complexity;
– Being customer first;
– Building strong and empowered teams, and;
– Bringing his competitive mindset to the business.

Recently, he has also begun consulting with small and medium companies in various industries. He brings to these companies help in focusing on an external growth strategy, internal improvement to build better and simpler operations that are highly effective, and access to capital from multiple investment sources. 

Agnes Blom-Schieber, PhD

Technical Fellow, Product Development at Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Agnes makes airplanes more fuel efficient by developing technologies that help reduce weight and drag. She works with engineers and applied mathematicians to develop methods and software to speed up the design and analysis process, and to model and improve our manufacturing methods. She is specialized in fiber-reinforced composites, while she often taps into her overall aerospace knowledge, and explores new technologies such as data analytics and machine learning. Agnes is also an active inventor who holds 23 US patents and 7 Boeing trade secrets.

She is an affiliate professor at University of Washington’s Mechanical Engineering department, and a technical advisory board member of the ThermoPlastic composites Research Center (TPRC). Agnes is an AIAA Associate Fellow and the past chair of the AIAA PNW section. She graduated with an MSc and PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Abhiram Krishnan

Avionics Software Engineer at Blue Origin

Abhiram graduated from the University of Michigan with a BSE in Aerospace Engineering, and an MEng in Space Systems Engineering. During school, he was involved in the hybrid rocket development with the rocket team, MASA, as well as with the student AIAA chapter. He then moved to the Seattle area to join the New Graduate Rotation at Blue Origin, where he rotated through avionics hardware test, fluid systems component design, and combustion devices (focusing on test automation). After the rotation, he moved into a full time role with the BE-4 controller software team, where he works on embedded software development and qualification for the engine controller. 

Priscilla Khoury

Propulsion Control System Engineer at Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Priscilla moved out to Seattle, WA after receiving a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech in May 2007. Her first year at Boeing, she was an engine performance engineer in Propulsion Product Development. A year later, she joined the 787 Experimental Flight Test effort as a Ground Operations Engineer. In this role, she’s been able to experience the manufacturing process in the factory regarding flight test installations and flight test conduct and processes. After about 3 years of flight test excitement, it was time to return to Propulsion and she joined the 787 Engine Controls group mainly working in the Propulsion Integration Lab (PIL) in Seattle. In March of 2014, she joined the 737MAX Engine Controls group in Renton, and currently works in the 777X Engine Controls group in Everett.

Priscilla enjoys promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and sharing her experience of becoming an engineer. She received her master’s degree in Systems Architecting and Engineering at the University of Southern California in May 2019 and encourages others to pursue continuing their education. Her vacations consist of visiting family in Northern Virginia and exploring the Pacific Northwest, and looking forward to visiting other countries!