Éder Sousa

Aerospace and Data Engineer

Santa Monica Office

Education

Ph.D. in aero/astro engineering, University of Washington; M.S. in aerospace engineering, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univ; B.S. in aerospace engineering, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univ

One Page Bio

Overview

Éder Sousa (he/him) is an aerospace and data engineer at the RAND Corporation. His research interests are in acquisition of defense systems focusing in propulsion and hypersonic systems, space science, technology, and policy, machine learning and data science, and nuclear fusion energy. Sousa also researches the impact of automation and artificial inteligence in the labor force within RAND's Middle Class Pathways Center.

Prior to joining RAND, he was a computational scientist working at the Air Force Research Laboratory (Rocket lab) in Edwards AFB.

Research Focus

Selected Publications

Triezenberg, Bonnie L., Colby P. Steiner, Grant Johnson, Jonathan Cham, Éder Sousa, Moon Kim, and Mary Kate Adgie, Assessing the Impact of U.S. Air Force National Security Space Launch Acquisition Decisions: An Independent Analysis of the Global Heavy Lift Launch Market, RAND Corporation (RR-4251-AF), 2020

R.J.E. Abrantes, É. Sousa, D. Bilyeu, R.Martin, "Complexity-reduction using automatic level grouping for atomic collisional-radiative models," Journal of Computational Physics, 407(109213), 2020

E.M. Sousa and U. Shumlak, "A blended continuous–discontinuous finite element method for solving the multi-fluid plasma model," Journal of Computational Physics, (326), 2016

U. Shumlak, R. Lilly, N. Reddell, E. Sousa, and B. Srinivasan, "Advanced physics calculations using a multi-fluid plasma model," Computer Physics Communications, 2011

Languages

Portuguese; Portuguese Creole

Publications

Report
Data-Enabled Approaches for Enhancing the Air Force Transformational Capability Pipeline
To aid the Air Force Transformational Capabilities Office, the authors of the report developed a data science tool to extract information from free-text descriptions. They demonstrate the tool and foresight methods in three case studies.
Mar 23, 2023
Report
Assessing Pittsburgh's Science- and Technology-Focused Workforce Ecosystem
RAND Corporation researchers characterize the science- and technology-focused (STF) workforce ecosystem in the Pittsburgh region and suggest policy changes and investment opportunities to help propel the region's STF sectors in the future.
Jan 9, 2023
Tool
Science and Technology-Focused Postsecondary Options in the Pittsburgh Area
RAND researchers compiled a list of science- and technology-focused (STF) providers and programs in the Pittsburgh area. Potential students can filter the list to find out which types of degrees or certificates can be earned in which STF fields.
Jan 9, 2023
Report
Ensuring Mission Assurance While Conducting Rapid Space Acquisition
The authors of this report examine what streamlining techniques are being used to accelerate U.S. Space Force acquisition, the risks associated with those techniques, their potential impact on mission assurance, and the possible mitigations.
Dec 15, 2022
Report
Toward a Unified Multiscale Computational Model of the Human Body's Immediate Responses to Blast-Related Trauma: A Review of the Scientific Literature
This report describes what is known about the human body's immediate responses to blast trauma from the results of computational modeling and identifies opportunities for further research in an effort to fill knowledge gaps.
Oct 4, 2021
Report
Assessing the Impact of U.S. Air Force National Security Space Launch Acquisition Decisions: An Independent Analysis of the Global Heavy Lift Launch Market
In this report, authors analyze the global heavy lift launch market to assess how decisions the U.S. Air Force might make in the near term could affect domestic launch providers and the market in general.
Apr 28, 2020