Awards

PhD students Erin Swansen and Cassie-Kay McQuinn were inducted into AIAA technical committees this year.

PhD student Cassie-Kay McQuinn was awarded the Texas A&M University Doctoral Research Excellence Assistantship (DREA). The DREA provides fully funded doctoral assistantships and aims to attract top-tier doctoral students. The assistantship is designed to enhance Texas A&M’s research capacity and productivity thus fortifying the university’s reputation as a leading research institution and facilitate groundbreaking contributions to various fields of study. The DREA is award by the university to only four students annually with selection criteria based on demonstrated academic excellence, relevant experiences beyond the classroom, and research potential. Cassie-Kay’s selection reflects not only her academic excellence but also her commitment to advancing knowledge and contributing meaningfully to her field.

McQuinn graduated with a B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M, and has been an active member of VSCL since 2021. Throughout her tenure as a student she has been involved in several leadership and engineering organizations including serving as the president of the Texas A&M chapter of Sigma Gamma Tau, the national aerospace engineering honor society. As a graduate student she has interned with Sandia National Labs as a research and development intern. Since 2023 she has interned with the Air Force Research Lab’s Autonomous Capabilities Team (ACT3) where her work on safety assurance and multi-constraint satisfaction contributes to the  Safe Trusted Autonomy for Responsible Spacecraft (STARS) program.

Congratulations Cassie-Kay!

Jillian Bennett was selected as the recipient of the Stanger Endowed Graduate Fellowship. Established by Dianna Stanger, the fellowship provides academic freedom to selected fellows by providing a portion of their support for two years. The selection process for the fellowship focuses on how the student plans to leverage their Ph.D. toward general welfare and on ways in which the student has shown commitment to advancing women’s participation and inclusion in Aerospace Engineering and other STEM fields. On the fellowship, Jillian says “I am extremely thankful and honored to have received the Stanger Endowed Graduate Fellowship. This fellowship has given me the opportunity to dive further into my interests within my research. Because of Ms. Stanger’s generosity, I am able to broaden my knowledge and pursue a career in topics that most excite me and make an impact in aerospace engineering.”

Jillian was honored at the Texas A&M University’s Graduate and Professional School’s 2025 Spring Awards Ceremony with the Outstanding Mentoring Award for Graduate and Professional Students. This award recognizes and honors individuals who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to mentoring undergraduate students or peers. Jill is passionate about mentoring students through her lab and organizations like Sigma Gam­ma Tau and the aerospace honor society, helping women navigate school and life stressors while pursuing aerospace engineering opportunities. Congratulations Jill!

Evelyn Madewell, a graduate student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, has received the prestigious 2025 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships Program (NSFGRFP). 

Madewell, a Ph.D. student, graduated from the University of Washington with a major in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering with an Applied Mathematics minor. At UW, her capstone project was awarded the Capstone Technical Excellence and went on to compete as the first US team in the European Air Cargo Challenge with their designed aircraft. Madewell was also recognized as one of the “Trailblazing Women of Aerospace” in the UW Aero & Astro Highflight newspaper.

Madewell has interned with Freefly Systems as a flight test and software engineer where she flew many of their industrial drones, executing test plans, retrofitting with various updates, and creating production scripts. Following this she interned with Hood Technology, where she engaged in a literature review on vision-based UAV navigation while still in her last quarter of undergrad. During the summer, she developed a tracking display for in-flight UAV docking from radar test data as well as drafted and iterated on skyhooking models with prototype testing. This upcoming summer she will be contributing to the Stratolaunch Talon A system as a guidance, navigation, and control intern.

Her NSF proposal discussed how despite the growing applications and technologies available for aerial navigation, current navigation systems for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) typically rely on a pairing of GNSS location information, which can be unreliable due to obstacles or simply limited in remote environments, and IMU measurement data, which can have compounded position error. Madewell will work with Professor Valasek to develop a novel, visual-based navigation system that precisely estimates aerial vehicle pose and location in GPS-denied scenarios, enabling UAVs to reach targets and fly in previously inaccessible areas as well as creating a reliable alternative in GPS outages.

Madewell says “I’m thrilled to accept this prestigious honor. I am especially grateful to Dr. Valasek for his encouragement in pursuing this as well as to Dr. Vagners for his advice along the way — without these two mentors I would not be the engineer I am today. As a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, I am excited to utilize its resources while continuing my research alongside Dr. Valasek and the Vehicle Systems & Control Lab team as a graduate student at Texas A&M University.” Congratulations Evelyn! VSCL is thrilled to have you on our team!

Cassie-Kay McQuinn was selected as the recipient of the Stanger Endowed Graduate Fellowship. Established by Dianna Stanger, the fellowship provides academic freedom to selected fellows by providing a portion of their support for two years. The goal of the fellowship is to give students the confidence they need to pursue their dreams regardless of the obstacles that are in their way. The selection process for the fellowship focuses on how the student plans to leverage their Ph.D. toward the greater good and on ways in which the student has shown commitment to advancing women’s participation and inclusion in Aerospace Engineering and other STEM fields. 

Cassie-Kay was an active member of Club of Females in Engineering (CAFE) throughout her undergraduate studies. This organization highlights the importance of academic excellence, career development, and providing a community for women studying engineering. As a graduate student she has been actively involved in student mentorship through the VSCL and Sigma Gamma Tau (SGT), where she served as the president in 2022. Cassie-Kay wants to leverage her skill set and experience to bring technology and therefore encouragement to people and students who do not have access to resources or the support to pursue a STEM career.

 

Dr. John Valasek received two distinguishing awards during the Spring 2024 semester. In the Faculty Excellence Awards category, Valasek was awarded the College of Engineering Teaching Impact Award. This award recognizes individuals who have had a profound impact on students through their teaching. Valasek received the award for the career achievements of his former graduate and undergraduate students.

Valasek was also awarded the Engineering Genesis Award for Multidisciplinary Research. This award was created to honor Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) researchers who have secured a grant of $1 million or more for a research project. Valasek is the PI for the project: “Enhancing the Cycle-of-Learning for Autonomous Systems to Facilitate Human-Agent Teaming”.

For the Fall of 2025, Jillian Bennett received the Aerospace Engineering Graduate Excellence Fellowship, a competitive fellowship selected by the AERO Graduate Program Committee with an award of $1,000.

Jillian is a Master of Science student, with a focus in Dynamics & Control. She is currently on the KAMS project, working on adaptive control for multiple time scale systems. She has been in the VSCL since Spring 2023, working on flight testing for the System Identification project and extending KAMS as part of her thesis work. Jillian has an interest in flight testing, nonlinear control, and vehicle dynamics.

VSCL graduate student Cassie-Kay McQuinn is the recipient of the J. Malon Southerland Aggie Leader Scholarship. The J. Malon Southerland Aggie Leader Scholarship program was created to recognize and reward students involvement at Texas A&M University. The scholarship was named in honor of J. Malon Southerland, former TAMU Vice President for Student Affairs. While a student at Texas A&M Cassie-Kay has been involved in leadership through membership of the Student Engineers’ Council (SEC), completion of the Zachry Leadership Program (ZLP), and has been Vice President then President of the Texas A&M chapter of Sigma Gamma Tau (SGT) the National Honor Society for Aerospace Engineering.

 

VSCL Graduate Assistant Researcher, Jillian Bennett, is a recipient of the Graduate Excellence Fellowship Award for Spring 2024. This is a competitive, merit-based fellowship awarded to students by the Aerospace Engineering Graduate Committee. The fellowship includes a $1,000 supplemental award for Spring 2024.

Jillian is a Master of Science student, with a focus in Dynamics & Control. She is currently on the KAMS project, working on adaptive control for multiple time scale systems. She has been in the VSCL since Spring 2023, previously working on flight testing for the System Identification project. Jillian has an interest in flight testing, nonlinear control, and vehicle dynamics.