Coppola Giovanni holds a Master degree in Space and Astronautical Engineering at the italian University of Rome, La Sapienza. He works in CIRA (Italian Aerospace Research Center), at the Space Division as researcher of the Space Propulsion Laboratory. He worked as researcher and system engineer in international projects related to hyper-sonic vehicles and electric propulsion systems. He is mainly involved in the CIRA electric propulsion laboratory projects and activity as researcher. The recent activities are associated with the development of numerical tools for the preliminary design of Gridded Ion Thrusters (GITs), Helicon Plasma Thrusters (HPTs) and HEMPT. Other activities are related to plasma modelling and optimization techniques.