Ben Magolan
About Ben Magolan
Ben Magolan is a Co-Founder of Paperplane, with a background in software engineering and nuclear science. He has held positions at various organizations, including Xometry and the Naval Nuclear Laboratory, and has a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Work at Paperplane
Ben Magolan serves as Co-Founder at Paperplane, a position he has held since 2021. In this role, he is involved in the strategic direction and operational management of the company. Paperplane focuses on leveraging technology to enhance user experiences and streamline processes. Under his leadership, the company participated in the Y Combinator Winter 2023 batch, which is known for supporting startups with mentorship and funding.
Previous Experience at Xometry
Before joining Paperplane, Ben worked at Xometry as a Senior Software Engineer specializing in Machine Learning Operations (ML Ops) from 2021 to 2022. His role involved developing and implementing machine learning models to optimize manufacturing processes. This experience contributed to his expertise in software engineering and data-driven decision-making.
Background in Nuclear Engineering
Ben Magolan has a strong academic background in Nuclear Engineering. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Nuclear, Plasma, & Radiological Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 2009 to 2013. He furthered his education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he achieved both a Master of Science and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Science and Engineering, completing his studies from 2013 to 2018.
Experience in Software Engineering
Ben has extensive experience in software engineering, having worked in various capacities prior to his role at Paperplane. He served as a Senior Software Engineer at the Naval Nuclear Laboratory from 2018 to 2020. He also held a position as a Graduate Research Assistant at MIT for five years, where he contributed to research projects in nuclear science. His experience includes automating data entry processes to enhance CRM data quality and utilizing Natural Language Processing (NLP) to improve CRM systems.
Contributions to Los Alamos National Laboratory
In 2014, Ben participated in the Computational Physics Summer Workshop at Los Alamos National Laboratory for two months. This experience provided him with insights into advanced computational techniques and their applications in physics, further enriching his technical skill set.