# Rachel Domagalski

> Flight Software @ Xona Space Systems

Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/racheldomagalski

I am a Software Engineer with a Master's Degree in Astrophysics, currently working in aerospace writing software to talk to satellites from the ground.

## Work Experience
### Flight Software Engineer @ Xona Space Systems
Jan 2025 – Present | Burlingame, California, United States

### Software Engineer @ Astranis
Jan 2019 – Jan 2025 | San Francisco Bay Area
- Developed software interface to ground TTC modems used to command and receive telemetry from satellites in geostationary orbit.
- Developed microcontroller firmware for interactions with amplifiers on the satellite payload.
- Contributed to firmware for flight TTC hardware.

### Systems Engineer @ Cobalt Robotics
Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area
-- Developed a data collection and analysis pipeline that runs on the robot using ROS and Python scientific libraries to map and visualize WiFi and cellular signal strength and quality in indoor spaces.
-- Improved the security of the Linux OS on the robot by implementing full disk encryption with dm-crypt and TPM hardware. Used Ansible to streamline and automate the robot's software bringup procedure.
-- Developed software tools to encrypt and decrypt the robot's video logs using the AWS Encryption SDK for Python as well as tools to monitor and alert for hardware failures on the Cobalt robot's storage devices.
-- Used TravisCI and Pytest to port the Cobalt web backend from Python 2 to Python 3.

### Graduate Student Researcher @ University of Toronto
Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | Toronto, Canada Area
June 2017 - December 2018: Balloon Astrophysics Group under the supervision of Professor Barth Netterfield. Research focus: SuperBIT, a balloon-borne wide field telescope designed to measure weak gravitational lensing.

Research tasks:
-- Used C/C++ and Python to analyze telescope pointing data from SuperBIT's 2018 flight.
-- Used GSL and numpy to perform statistical tasks for data analysis. 
-- Used C to investigate the feasibility of using the Linux kernel CPU scheduling class SCHED_DEADLINE for real-time Linux flight code.
-- Used C++ to do preliminary work on writing software to read images from star cameras.
-- Installed and maintained headless Linux systems on embedded motherboards.
-- Wrote shell scripts to automate various software tasks.
-- Travelled to Fort Sumner, NM in August 2017 to install a sun sensor on SuperBIT and helped prepare the instrument for flight-readiness.
-- Wrote a public outreach talk outlining the history of balloon-borne astronomy and the work at the University of Toronto.

Sept 2016 - May 2017: Research rotation in the Long Wavelength Lab under the supervision of Professor Keith Vanderlinde. Research focus: Using the CHIME Pathfinder radio telescope to measure 21cm absorbtion around redshift 1.3.

Research:
-- Used Python to analyze large amounts of radio astronomical data.
-- Implemented advanced mathematical techniques (Fourier transforms, Polyphase filter banks, FIR filters, statistics) to assist with data reduction.
-- Simulated the instrument response to determine systematics in the digital signal processing algorithms of a radio telescope.
-- Wrote shell scripts to assist with both data acquisition on the telescope servers as well as data reduction on a local supercomputer.
-- Coordinated and scheduled astronomical observations on a telescope used by a large collaboration.
-- Went to the DRAO site in British Columbia to help assist construction of the CHIME telescope and maintenance of the CHIME Pathfinder prototype telescope.

### Teaching Assistant @ University of Toronto
Jan 2016 – Jan 2017
-- Led discussion sections for introductory astronomy classes aimed at non-science students.
-- Performed planetarium shows to showcase class subject material.
-- Collaborated with other teaching assistants to discuss and improve pedagogical methods.
-- Used effective teaching and pedagogical strategies in the classroom to communicate ideas.

### Junior Specialist @ University of California, Berkeley
Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | Berkeley, CA
Work in the Radio Astronomy Lab at the UC Berkeley under the supervision of Professor Aaron Parsons.

Research tasks:
-- Used Simulink to develop digital signal processing code for processing data using custom FPGA boards.
-- Wrote software in Python for various tasks, including, but not limited to interfacing with the
FPGA’s, collecting data in real-time, controlling clock generators, and running basic analysis
tasks.
-- Developed Linux-based data acquisitions systems for radio astronomy instruments that are used
for both research and educational purposes.
-- Developed online software documentation.
-- Used shell scripts to automate various software tasks.
-- Travelled to Green Bank, WV to deploy a digital correlator instrument as well as helped organize an instrument deployment to Rangely, CO.
-- Developed analog RF signal chains to amplify and filter signals from radio antennas.
-- Developed and debugged C++ code for detecting misbehaving antennas in a large grid of radio antennas.
-- Developed and demonstrated an interactive public outreach demonstration of radio astronomy techniques.
-- Presented research posters and talks at conferences and collaboration meetings.

### Teaching Assistant @ University of California, Berkeley
Jan 2014 – Jan 2014
-- Developed and taught lessons and demonstrations of how to use Python in the context of optical astronomical data acquisition and analysis.
-- Held office hours to answer and help students with course material.
-- Collaborated with other teaching assistants to discuss and improve pedagogical methods.

### Undergraduate Researcher @ Berkeley Lab
Jan 2012 – Jan 2014 | Berkeley, CA
Undergraduate research assistant in the Nearby Supernova Factory under the supervision of Dr. Greg Aldering.

Research Tasks:
-- Used Python to implement a data reduction pipeline to identify and characterize instrument systematics.
-- Used Cython to optimize Python software performance.
-- Wrote shell scripts to automate various software tasks in a Linux supercomputer.
-- Wrote internally-distributed software documentation.
-- Helped port a large C, C++, and FORTRAN software pipeline from 32-bit to 64-bit.
-- Identified and fixed numerical errors caused from changing data types in the 32-to-64 bit port.
-- Used Python to write text-processing scripts to optimize software development and to analyze numerical differences in software outputs on different CPU architectures. 
-- Participated in an undergraduate research symposium to present research.

### Undergraduate Researcher @ University of California, Davis
Jan 2012 – Jan 2012 | Davis, CA
Summer research internship with the Nuclear Physics Group under the supervision of Professor Daniel Cebra and Manuel Calderon de la Barca Sanchez.

Research Tasks:
-- Used C++ and the CERN software libraries to process data from a large particle accelerator. 
-- Implemented mathematical and statistical methods for data reduction.
-- Used Monte Carlo methods to simulate various heavy-ion collisions.
-- Wrote shell scripts to automate various software tasks.
-- Gave a research presentation outlining findings and results.

### Mathematics Tutor @ American River College
Jan 2012 – Jan 2012
-- Developed and taught lessons and demonstrations on Linear Algebra at an undergraduate level.
-- Collaborated with other teaching assistants to discuss and improve pedagogical methods in the Beacon Program at American River College.


## Education
### Master's degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics
University of Toronto

### Bachelor of Arts - BA in Physics
University of California, Berkeley

### Physics
American River College


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/rsdomagalski
- Portfolio: https://domagalski.github.io/
- GitHub: https://github.com/domagalski

---
Source: https://flows.cv/racheldomagalski
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/racheldomagalski/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-10