Location
Gainesville, FL
About
Birthday:
December 14
School / Work Affiliation:
University of Florida / Saint Francis Catholic High School
I am:
teacher
About Me:
Dante received his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville in 2006. He is credited for co-founding the Small Satellite Design Club (SSDC) in his undergraduate years after being selected to compete in the Frank J. Redd student competition at the 19th Annual USU/AIAA Small Satellite Conference in Logan, Utah. SSDC is a UF affiliated student organization whose primary goal was to establish a permanent small satellite program on campus while creating awareness of space systems engineering in order to prepare students for their professional careers. Dante is a research assistant within the Space Systems Group (SSG), a graduate research team advised by Professor Norman Fitz-Coy in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. SSG is completing a cube satellite mission known as SwampSat. SwampSat is a CubeSat for on-orbit demonstration of a compact three-axis attitude control system developed at UF geared to affect rapid retargeting and precision pointing (R2P2) of pico-class (1 kg) and nano-class (<10 kg) spacecraft. Through Dante’s leadership, SSDC won the FUNSAT design competition sponsored by the Florida Space Grant Consortium and Space Florida in both 2008 and 2009. Dante is also credited for establishing and coordinating outreach efforts. He has high hopes to establish the Educate Utilizing the CubeSat Experience (EdUCE) project, a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) discovery research K-12 outreach initiative, which in return just may inspire and cultivate the next generation of scientists and engineers to carry this and other work forward. Dante coordinated a pilot opportunity for middle and high school educators to incorporate STEM in their classroom with a small satellite delivery mechanism. Dante also developed an Introduction to Space Systems seminar affiliated with the Student Summer Training Program (SSTP) with the culmination of high school students to launch and operate a high altitude balloon experiments. Dante earned a Dean’s Certificate in Engineering Entrepreneurship in Spring 2011. Dante plans to further conduct his research on small satellite technology in pursuit of his PhD while being the Curriculum Technologist / Computer Applications instructor at St. Francis Catholic High School (SFCHS) in Gainesville, FL. This is his third year as a faculty member at SFCHS where he advised a technology club known as Teched Out who has hosted a TEDxYouth event and is the faculty sponsor bringing robotics to students this year! Dante intends to be a spacecraft engineer and contributing member within the small satellite community. His career goals include his interest in the Advanced Space Technologies Research and Engineering Center (ASTREC) established in late 2008. Dante also joined UF’s Innovation through Institutional Integration (I-cubed) program, which focuses on shaping graduate education campus wide. Dante also represented the College of Engineering in an exhibit at the 1st USA National Science and Engineering Festival in Washington D.C. in 2010, 2012, and planning for 2014 participation. On June 28, 2008, Dante married his better half, Dr. Taryn Rivera Buckley, at St. James Cathedral in Orlando, Florida. Dante and Dr. Taryn (“Team Buckley”) own a home in Gainesville and are raising their first child, Xavier, born March 2011. Furthermore, Dante is an aspiring professional and collegiate soccer referee.
