When he was a child, Julian Rimoli shared a dream with many other kids who grew up watching space missions: he wanted to be an astronaut.

"People thought I was crazy because I was in Argentina — in a small town," said Rimoli,  laughing.

But it was no joke.

Rimoli put his dreams to work, earning an aeronautics engineering degree at Argentina's Universidad Nacional de La Plata before coming to the U.S to earn a master's and doctoral degree from Caltech. Prior to accepting a faculty position at GT-AE in 2011, he spent two years as a post-doc at MIT's  Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.  

Becoming an astronaut is no longer on his wish list, but Rimoli is not complaining...

"I really like this place," Rimoli said of  the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

"I haven't been able to find another place with the level of energy we have on this campus. The students are very active, and they always have ideas and want to participate in research. The faculty is the same — lots of people are willing to collaborate all the time.

Classroom Strategies 

In the five years that he has been at GT-AE, Rimoli has excelled as a teacher, receiving both the Lockheed Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching  and the Goizueta Junior Faculty Professorship.

In the classroom, he says, it's important to reconstruct the process and build on the story. 

"Each lecture has its own story," he said. "I spend a lot of time thinking on the concept of how something comes to be the way it is."

Of his statics class (COE 2001), Rimoli said it was as important for students to gain an intuition about the subject as it is for them to gain technical knowledge. He is frustrated - and a little inspired - when he fails to convey both.

"When I perceive that students are not understanding, I think about how to fix it the next time I teach it," he said. "But at that moment, I try to come up with new ways of explaining, and try different examples or angles.

And it's okay, he tells his students, if they don't understand everything in class. 

"In the classroom, you get the big picture and, hopefully, you get a good set of notes to help you study. But at the end of the day, there's no way around studying."

Reaching Students

Rimoli is excited by the exchange of energy in his classes - whether he's teaching undergraduates or doctoral students. 

"The moment I walk into the classroom, I get energy. I give them energy, and they give me energy back," he said.

"It always helps if the students are engaged, and it takes time to build a relationship with the class. The classroom dynamic is not the same the first week of class as it is at the end of the semester."

Rimoli said the excitement level varies according to what he is teaching. 

"When I teach an advanced graduate level class, what excites me is that it really forces me to learn," he said.

"I have to prepare for these smart Ph.D. students who are going to ask tough questions. I want to — as much as possible — know the answer or be ready to think about the answer on the spot. It's a very stimulating intellectual challenge.

When teaching statics, an undergraduate course, Rimoli faces a different set of challenges.

"What I enjoy is the challenge of how to teach what, to me, is obvious," he said. "I have to put myself in the mindset of the students, and try to remember where I was [at their age].

He also has to be mindful about actively expressing the commitment he has to his students. Rimoli said that students are really good at reading the commitment of the faculty. 

"I think students appreciate the commitment," he said. "They may or may not like your teaching style, but if you are committed, they will respect it."

Rimoli's commitment shows. When he was teaching his students about trusses, he took the time to create "Truss Me! — an app that employs a video game format to coach students to think intuitively about truss behavior.

His commitment has had an impact that goes far beyond his classroom.

Released in 2014, Truss Me! has had 120,000 downloads in more than 140 countries, including 36,000 downloads from educational institutions.  

The app has gained a popular following here at Tech, but, Rimoli observes, the most important feedback he's received for his efforts has had nothing to do with it.

"The best reward is on the last day of class when a student shakes your hand and says, "I enjoyed your class."