Metis Design featured in Inc 5000 Company and BBJ Pacesetters
Key Staff

Metis Design was founded in 2002 as a spin-out of research being conducted in the Technology Laboratory for Advanced Composites in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Subsequently, MDC has thrived through a blend of government research grants and commercial development contracts totaling over $20M. In 2007 MDC was recognized by INC magazine as the 15th fastest growing US consulting company, and awarded BBJ Pacesetters recognition as the 50th fastest growing MA company. MDC employs a small but diverse staff of creative and highly specialized engineers. A large majority of our engineers hold Ph.D.'s in Aerospace, Mechanical or Electrical Engineering, and combine creativity with hands-on experience and fundamental principles to develop novel solutions for a wide range of real-world challenges. The experience of the MDC staff spans a broad range of disciplines, ranging from air and spacecraft applications to biomedical devices and consumer products.

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    • Key Staff

      Metis Design was founded in 2002 as a spin-out of research being conducted in the Technology Laboratory for Advanced Composites in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Subsequently, MDC has thrived through a blend of government research grants and commercial development contracts totaling over $20M. In 2007 MDC was recognized by INC magazine as the 15th fastest growing US consulting company, and awarded BBJ Pacesetters recognition as the 50th fastest growing MA company. MDC employs a small but diverse staff of creative and highly specialized engineers. A large majority of our engineers hold Ph.D.'s in Aerospace, Mechanical or Electrical Engineering, and combine creativity with hands-on experience and fundamental principles to develop novel solutions for a wide range of real-world challenges. The experience of the MDC staff spans a broad range of disciplines, ranging from air and spacecraft applications to biomedical devices and consumer products.

    • Seth S. Kessler, Ph.D.

      President & SHM Lead

      Dr. Kessler is the president and SHM team lead of MDC. He received his S.B., S.M. and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at MIT between 1995-2002 with a focus on composites and SHM. He worked at the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works as an advanced concepts engineer on the X33/VentureStar/JSF programs. In 1998, he received the MIT Admiral Luis De Florez Award, in 2001 was awarded the American Society for Composites Ph.D. Research Scholarship, was a Draper Fellow in 1999 and has won best paper in 2002 from the ASC, in 2009 the PHM Society, and in 2011 from the International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring. Dr. Kessler holds 8 patents (4 pending), has more than three dozen technical publications and serves on the SAE International G11-SHM and HM1 standards committees. Dr. Kessler guest lectures for advanced graduate courses on composite mechanics in the Aerospace Department at MIT, and was the System Engineering section editor and author of 2 chapters for the Integrated Vehicle Health Management for Aerospace Application textbook published by Wiley in 2011.

    • Rory C. Keogh, Ph.D.

      Propulsion Systems Lead

      Dr. Keogh is the Lead Propulsion Engineer at MDC, and manager of the West Coast office. Prior to joining MDC, Dr. Rory Keogh was a founding partner at Ventions, LLC and has a strong background in complex, high-speed rotating environments. From 2001 to 2006, Dr. Keogh worked for Mars & Co. in San Francisco as a strategy consultant, where he helped develop corporate strategies for several Fortune 100 companies. Concurrently, Dr. Keogh also independently developed and patented three different innovative gas turbine engine concepts. Dr. Keogh earned his Master’s and Doctoral degrees in 1998 and 2001 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Gas Turbine Laboratory. His research included the development of an experimental technique to measure the thermal efficiency of a film-cooled high-pressure turbine stage in the MIT blowdown turbine test facility. Dr. Keogh earned his Bachelors of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from University College Galway, Ireland in 1989.

    • Hugh L. McManus, Ph.D.

      Lean Enterprise Solutions Lead

      Dr. McManus, Senior Special Projects Engineer at MDC, leads the Lean Enterprise Solutions group that is involved in applying modern product development, business and technical practices to the aerospace industry. He has done pioneering work in application of lean techniques to product development with MIT's Lean Advancement Initiative (LAI). Dr. McManus received a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and S. B. and S. M. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT. He has previously worked at Kaman Aerospace, at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, and at teaching and research positions at MIT. Dr. McManus recently co-authored the LAI book, Lean Enterprise Value, is working on a book on space system architecture and design, co-edited a book on high temperature applications of polymer composite materials, has been an associate editor of the AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, and has published over 60 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications.

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