The Metis Design Team

Metis Design employs a small staff of highly speciallized full-time engineers, along with a number of part-time and contract engineers with varied backgrounds that augment and diversify the company's skills set. More than half of these engineers hold advanced degrees in Aerospace, Mechanical or Electrical Engineering. MDC continually seeks new talented staff to stay competitive and up-to-date with new technologies.

Seth S. Kessler, Ph.D. - President

Dr. Kessler, President and cofounder of Metis Design, received his S.B. and S.M. in Aerospace Engineering at MIT studying the effects of a cryogenic environment on composite materials and creating a design tool for composite structures subjected to extreme inertial loading. Dr. Kessler completed his Ph.D. in that same department at MIT researching techniques that use piezoelectric and MEMS devices to continuously monitor damage in composite structures. He specializes in composite materials, high-g systems design, active materials, cryogenics, damage detection and monitoring, and finite element modeling. Dr. Kessler worked for the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works as an advanced concepts and testing engineer on the X33/VentureStar and JSF programs. He was also a Draper Fellow working on the DARPA Funded WASP project. In 1998, he received the Admiral Luis De Florez Award from MIT for "Ingenuity and Creativity in Design", in 2001 was awarded the American Society for Composites Ph.D. Research Scholarship, and in 2002 the ASC Best Paper Award for Functional Composites. Dr. Kessler has more than two dozen technical publications in his areas of expertise, holds four patents (Sensor Infrastructure patent, Flyer assembly patent, Box pad patent, Flyer assembly follow-on patent) and has six patents pending, and is currently a member and contributing author for the AIAA, SAE, SPIE, and ASC. Resume. Publications. Presentations.

Hugh McManus, Ph.D. - Lean Enterprise Solutions Lead

Dr. McManus, Senior Special Projects Engineer at Metis Design, Dr. 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 Aerospace 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.

In addition to our employees, Metis Design has strong working relationships, strategic alliances and subcontracts with a variety of manufacturing, assembly and testing companies as well as top-tier academic institutions from around the country. These partnerships allow MDC to offer our clients a wider variety of services, including material testing, prototyping, and manufacturing services. Additionally, several research collaborations exist between MDC and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is located just a few blocks from our offices.