David Poston

This team is responsible for the design and development of nuclear fission reactors for civilian, NASA, and defense applications in space. Dr. Poston is the Chief Reactor Designer for the NASA Kilopower Project, including the DUFF and KRUSTY reactor experiments. Dr. Poston’s 25 years of space reactor experience has been primarily focused on near-term concepts for solar system exploration (including designs for missions to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune). In addition, Dr. Poston has developed several Nuclear Thermal Rocket (NTR) design concepts for NASA over the past several years. Prior to his experience at Los Alamos, Dr. Poston worked at GE Nuclear Energy for four years on advanced reactor design. Dr. Poston received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, an MS in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, and a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan.