Benjamin Margolis
Research Aerospace Engineer at NASA Ames Research Center
Oakland, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolBenjamin Margolis is a research aerospace engineer with 13 years of multidisciplinary experience bridging control systems, simulation, and software development, currently conducting research at NASA Ames. He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and an MS in Applied Mathematics, and has applied model predictive and nonlinear control to real-time motion systems and hypersonic entry vehicle architectures. Benjamin pairs rigorous academic research with hands-on engineering — from inventing a patented medical laser to building embedded and web systems as a sole proprietor — and routinely translates complex analyses into conference papers and technical reports. He contributes to open-source software (notably backend improvements to the popular Wagtail CMS), demonstrating an eye for code quality and maintainability beyond his aerospace work. Based in Oakland, CA, he excels at integrating simulation, experimental data, and practical implementation to advance emerging technologies.
13 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
PhD, Mechanical Engineering, PhD, Mechanical Engineering at University of California, DavisB.S., Engineering, B.S., Engineering at Harvey Mudd CollegeMaster of Science (M.S.), Applied Mathematics, Master of Science (M.S.), Applied Mathematics at Santa Clara UniversityJunipero Serra High School
Spanish
Github Skills (6)
cms10
wagtail10
python10
back-end-development10
django10
html7
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
wagtail/wagtail
May 2014 - Jun 2014
A Django content management system focused on flexibility and user experience
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:11 commits, 5 comments in 1 month
Contributions summary:Benjamin contributed to the Wagtail CMS project by addressing several backend-related issues. They removed raw SQL statements, updated image tag functionalities, and implemented a signal for new page creation in the admin interface. Additionally, the user fixed spacing issues and merged branches. These contributions demonstrate a focus on improving code quality, functionality, and overall project maintainability within the Django-based content management system.
content-management-systemdjangopythoncmswagtail
nasa/condor
Feb 2025 - Jun 2026
NASA's Condor is a framework for mathematical modeling of engineering systems in Python, for engineers with deadlines.
Contributions:2 releases, 14 reviews, 15 PRs in 1 year 4 months
python
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