_ _ _____ _ _ | | | |_ _ __ _ ___ |_ _| __ ___ _ __ ___ | |__ ___ _ __| |_ | |_| | | | |/ _` |/ _ \ | || '__/ _ \| '_ ` _ \| '_ \ / _ \ '__| __| | _ | |_| | (_| | (_) | | || | | (_) | | | | | | |_) | __/ | | |_ |_| |_|\__,_|\__, |\___/ |_||_| \___/|_| |_| |_|_.__/ \___|_| \__| |___/ +1-626-648-1938 hugo.trombert@gmail.com LinkedIn

Mechanical engineering Master's from EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland), class of 2025.

Currently in Caltech as a visiting student for my Master's thesis in the Manthiram Lab, doing electrochemistry because I want to work on making gigascale cheap non-fossil hydrocarbons.

>>> Long-time non-fossil hydrocarbons enthusiast: when I was 14, I grew microalgae in a photobioreactor and steam distillated it to extract the oil.

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PAST WORK AND ENGINEERING EXPERIENCES:

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EPFL ROCKET TEAM
At EPFL Rocket Team, I designed the mechanical assembly for a modular cryogenic rocket engine electric pump.
I was supposed to design the geometry of the labyrinth seals, but I ended up designing the entire mechanical assembly of the pump in 4 months.
Testing at our testing facility is expected later this year after the main competition.

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SAILOWTECH
I co-founded and was Vice-President of Sailowtech, a student-group at EPFL that organizes and runs oceanographic expeditions and outreach events in schools on ocean conservation.
For our first expedition focused on plankton, with a crew of 6, we circled the North Atlantic Ocean for a year from Europe to the Caribbeans, to Canada, Greenland and back to Europe. I was a crew-member for the last 4 months (the cold part).

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EPFL CARBON TEAM
I designed and built a vacuum chamber with radiative heating elements for research on the performance of different adsorbants for Vacuum and Temperature Swing Adsorption (VTSA), a method for Direct Air Capture.

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ALPHA IMPULSION
As an engineering intern, I designed, built and tested rocket parts -tanks, interfaces and avionics- for the world's first autophage rocket (the tank is the solid fuel in the hybrid rocket engine, burning both radially and longitudinally like a candle).

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OTHER:
- Part-time internship at CIM UPC doing mostly CAD,
- Summer and student jobs as a waiter, physics TA, in door-to-door sales, and in washing machine installation.

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ENGINEERING HARD SKILLS (besides the assumed MechE knowledge):

- Machining: limited skills, so I bought a mini-lathe on Craigslist a few months ago when I arrived in America to get better at it. (I'm in the process of turning it into a mini-mill by adding a z-axis!),
- Welding: basic skills with MIG on steel,
- PCB design: good on KiCAD for a MechE.

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HOBBIES:
In my spare time, when not working on personal projects (like those on my old Instructables), I like to:
- fly airplanes (flew as towplane pilot at Yverdon Glider Club, flying the mighty Aerospool WT-9 for free),
- SCUBA dive,
- climb mountains (testament for enjoying Type >1 fun),
- travel to remote places (rode the Mauritania Iron Ore train and visited an indigenous community in the Costa Rica forest that had not been visited for 2 years),
- read books,
- learn languages (French: native, English: fluent, Italian: decent but I replaced most of it with Spanish, Chinese: beginner).

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THINGS I'M INTERESTED IN:
- decarbonizing heavy industry and sea and air transport,
- exploring and settling space.

>>> Dreaming of GDP-GHG decoupling, and of industrializing Mars during the year and astro-mountaineering on the holidays.

Proud Make Sunsets customer.

French citizen, aspiring American immigrant. Not a current US citizen nor a permanent resident.