Dr. Dan Fries is a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. He holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where his research focused on turbulent mixing, ignition, and combustion in subsonic and supersonic flows. Prior to his Ph.D., he obtained Master’s degrees from the University of Stuttgart (Germany) and Georgia Tech. Currently, Dan is engaged in research on an inductively coupled plasma torch, high-enthalpy material tests, and plasma kinetics in a capacitive glow discharge. He collaborates closely with researchers at Sandia National Labs and the UT Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences. His research interests include high-enthalpy and high-speed flows, plasma and combustion chemistry, aerothermodynamics, laser diagnostics and spectroscopy, and the inversion of measurement models. His work is driven by a commitment to advancing space access, enabling exploration, and addressing environmental pollution through the study of important fundamental research questions.