Kai Staats
Director Of Research For SAM At Biosphere 2 at Over the Sun, LLC
Benson, Arizona, United States
Summary
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Senior🎓
Top SchoolKai Staats is a multidisciplinary researcher, entrepreneur, and filmmaker who leads the design and construction of SAM, a hermetically sealed Moon/Mars habitat analog at Biosphere 2, and directs a small agile team advancing off-world habitation research. With a decade of experience blending systems engineering, machine learning for radio astronomy, and life-support modeling, he builds tools like SIMOC to translate closed-ecosystem research into practical education and mission planning. He founded Terra Soft Solutions, scaling Yellow Dog Linux into a recognized OS used by NASA and major corporations, demonstrating rare technical entrepreneurship across decades. Kai’s background spans hands-on habitat fabrication, computational modeling, and documentary storytelling, enabling him to communicate complex science to both research and public audiences. An active collaborator with institutions including LIGO, ASU, and Paragon, he applies genetic programming and data-driven methods to real-world detection and life-support problems. Based in Arizona, he combines wilderness medicine and space studies training with a maker’s ethos to iterate high-fidelity analogs that inform both planetary exploration and Earth-based sustainability.
10 years of coding experience
19 years of employment as a software developer
Masters of Science Machine Learning applied to radio astronomy, Masters of Science Machine Learning applied to radio astronomy at University of Cape TownBachelor of Science Industrial Design, Bachelor of Science Industrial Design at Arizona State UniversitySpace Studies Program 2017 Aerospace Aeronautical and Astronautical/Space Engineering, Space Studies Program 2017 Aerospace Aeronautical and Astronautical/Space Engineering at International Space UniversityWFR Wilderness Medicine, WFR Wilderness Medicine at NOLS Wilderness Medicine InstituteSummer Intern Biology, Summer Intern Biology at Stanford University
Stackoverflow
11reputation
47reached
0answers
1question
Github Skills (19)
cpu10
genetic10
genetic-programming10
cuda10
python9
machine-learning9
tensorflow9
gpu9
deep-learning9
neural-network8
prepare7
logical-operators6
sympy6
data-science3
astrophysics1
Programming languages (2)
Github contributions (5)
kstaats/karoo_gp
Nov 2015 - Sep 2022
A Genetic Programming platform for Python with TensorFlow for wicked-fast CPU and GPU support.
Contributions:3 reviews, 181 commits, 7 PRs in 6 years 11 months
cudacpupythondeep-learninggpu
kstaats/karoo_tools
Mar 2018 - Aug 2022
Karoo Tools help you prepare your data for Machine Learning runs.
Contributions:16 pushes, 1 branch in 4 years 5 months
pythondata-sciencemachine-learningrunsprepare
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