Jack Elston

Jack Elston received the Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA, in 2011, based on work that developed a complex meshed network, unmanned aircraft system, and control algorithms for in situ sampling of severe convective storms. He is the CEO and Cofounder of Black Swift Technologies, Boulder, CO, USA. His team was the first to intercept a tornadic supercell thunderstorm with a UAS, flying over 72 different missions, with ground speeds of over 100 mph, and never losing an aircraft. He continued his work with BST in extreme environments, having visited all seven continents and has flown aircraft in the arctic, on the side of volcanoes, and over wildland fires. He is involved with several cutting edge UAS projects including a tube-launched UAS for hurricane observations, machine vision for low altitude flights and GPS denied environments, and a NASA project to design a glider to explore the upper atmosphere of Venus.