Recovery and Rocket Science

Theo St. Francis '13 doesn't like taking shortcuts. He believes in understanding the fundamentals of how things work, not skipping right to the solution. It's a good quality for an aerospace engineer.

As a student at Marin Academy, Theo loved the Outings Program. He watched his brother Adrian St. Francis '09 go through MA before him and knew that backpacking was in his future. In his 9th-grade year at MA alone, Theo went backpacking four times. "I got a very good kind of exposure to all the natural world has to offer and the way that you can dissect it."

After graduating from Marin Academy, Theo went to study mechanical engineering at MIT. But just one week into his first year, Theo's plans were interrupted by a serious spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down. Theo was told that whatever mobility he'd gain back would be achieved in the first two years after his injury and, after that, he shouldn't expect improvement.

Through a rigorous Pilates-based approach and the application of his scientific curiosities to human biomechanics, Theo increased his own mobility beyond that two-year mark and has innovated techniques for paralysis recovery. Theo published the book From the Ground Up: A Human-Powered Framework for Spinal Cord Injury Recovery in 2020 with his business partner Stephanie Comella. Theo refers to those he works with who have spinal cord injuries as "SCI athletes" because, he says, "the process of recovery from a spinal cord injury is kind of like being an athlete all the time."

Theo now hosts pop-up workshops based on his book and has even designed hand controls that can operate rudder pedals, making it possible for someone to fly a plane using only their hands. He recognizes the natural alignments in engineering and SCI recovery, "unlocking possibilities through hardware for those with reduced mobility, with myself as Test Subject #1."

Theo ultimately returned to MIT to pursue his bachelor's degree five years after his injury, and his area of interest shifted—to aerospace engineering. Through an internship with Relativity Space in Long Beach, CA, Theo built hardware for a rocket that recently made it beyond the border of space (100 kilometers). After graduating from MIT this year, Theo will soon begin his Ph.D. studies in Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Theo's graduate focus will be "microgravity fluids" which, much like his earlier interest in mechanical engineering, partly harkens back to the science of the human body.

"Fluids do weird things when there's no gravitational force, floating around and forming huge drops and sticking to walls. In the context of aerospace, 'fluids' could be propulsion engineering, designing the pipes and valves through which chemical fuels flow, or gas pressurization systems for satellites that visit Saturn or beyond... or it could be for environmental control and life-support for human spaceflight. Humans are fluid creatures."

Theo muses that he is always looking to forge connections between his work in SCI recovery and aerospace engineering. "Those who are most able on earth are not necessarily the most able in space," he says, "and if you think about designing a crew capsule for use in microgravity, many of the same kinds of human-factors crop up as when designing inclusive spaces here on Earth—how people move in three dimensions, which knobs or cabinets should be most available, how to design for safe and intuitive operation in low light."

And you have to wonder, when someone works in aerospace, if they'd like to travel to space one day. For Theo, the answer is an enthusiastic "yes," although he says that's not what drives him. "Everyone who goes comes back and talks about how perspective-changing it is. We didn't really understand the fragility of the earth until we left it, looked back on it, and saw how delicate and small it is. I'm excited for what the upcoming era of human spaceflight will do for technology development, for off-world discovery, and for inspiring the next generation just as the Apollo Program did for our parents."

Learn more about Theo St. Francis '13 and his work: theostfrancis.com