Lesser (center, in green) teaches students in a hands-on engineering course. A Skittle-sorting robot made of wood sits on the table.
Engineering for the Future of Astrophysics
As he worked through his doctoral and later postdoctoral research, one refrain Lesser kept hearing from colleagues touched on the disconnect between the tools astronomers and astrophysicists needed and the ones they received. Without gaining hands-on experience before they entered the workforce, the engineers who developed tools for scientific study struggled to translate ideas on the page into usable equipment.
At the time, Lesser was a member and leader of the local Xerocraft makerspace in Tucson, Arizona. In this space, he saw the opportunity to bridge the gap between students’ education and the hands-on learning that could both ease their path into…
