New Members

VSCL is proud to welcome two new graduate research assistants:

Sadie Binz is a recent graduate of Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering. During her undergraduate studies, she was a member of Sigma Gamma Tau, the Aerospace Engineering Honor Society, and the SAE Aero Design Team, as well as an intern at Bell Helicopter. From this experience, Sadie developed an interest in flight testing and hopes to obtain her private pilot’s license in the future. She has undergraduate research experience in VSCL, primarily in system identification, and is excited to continue researching in VSCL as a graduate student pursuing a A Master of Science degree.

 

 

Raul Santos graduated from Texas A&M University in Spring 2025 with a Bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering with minors in Computer Science and Mathematics. As an undergraduate, he co-founded the Society of Sonic Flight Engineers and began working with the VSCL as an undergraduate assistant. Raul has interned at Albers Aerospace with their Digital Engineering team as a Systems Engineering Intern, and at the Air Force Research Laboratory as a Safe Autonomy Intern with their Autonomy Capability Team. These experiences have motivated Raul to continue pursuing his interests in flight testing and aerospace autonomy as a graduate assistant researcher at the VSCL, beginning Fall 2025.

VSCL is proud to welcome two new graduate research assistants:

Evelyn Madewell joins VSCL as a Ph.D student in the Aerospace Engineering department. She graduated in the Spring of 2024 from the University of Washington with a BS in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering and a Minor in Applied Mathematics. As an undergraduate, she was a research assistant and test pilot in the Autonomous Flight Systems Lab. Her research background includes wilderness search and rescue, hazard aware landing optimization, and beyond visual line of sight operations, which she presented at the 2024 AIAA SciTech Forum. Evelyn has interned with Freefly Systems as a flight test engineer, where she programmed a novel testing procedure for the Astro commercial drone platform, and is currently investigating Sequential Triangulation as a way of solving 3D visual navigation in GPS-denied scenarios with Hood Technology. With her interest in flight test engineering and UAV controls, Evelyn’s work with VSCL will begin by contributing to the Real-time System Identification of UAS project.”

 

Zach Curtis is graduated from Utah Tech with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering in 2024. Throughout his undergraduate years, he pursued various internships to broaden his practical experience. At RAM Aviation Space & Defense, he interned within the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) group, the prototyping lab, and the controls engineer group, gaining insights into different facets of mechanical engineering. Additionally, he had the opportunity to intern at Baxter Aerospace, a consulting group, where he worked as a mechanical engineer specializing in designing liquid nitrogen baths for application in nuclear fusion research. Furthermore, during his junior year he engaged in research activities at Utah Tech under the guidance of PhD Monty Kennedy, focusing on Shock and Vibration testing. This involved utilizing the NASA-sponsored Shock Sat testing device to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the field of shock testing on spacecraft.

VSCL is proud to welcome two new graduate research assistants:

Erin Swansen joins VSCL as a Ph.D. transfer student in the Aerospace Engineering department. Erin has over five years of experience in industry at Boeing as a guidance, navigation, and control engineer in the Advanced Autonomous Systems group. Her work involved guidance and control system development for a variety of aerial platforms including UAVs, high performance aircraft, and guided weapons. During graduate school, she has interned at NASA and Sandia National Laboratories doing flight control research and development. Her professional and research background includes significant work using robust and adaptive control to address challenges in flight, particularly for hypersonic vehicles. She has also conducted research sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories to develop a new methodology to improve performance of machine learning algorithms for sparse data sets. Her current research interests focus on implementable and verifiable algorithms that allow the safe use of machine learning in guidance and control architectures. Erin earned a B.S. in Systems Science and Engineering and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. With VSCL, Erin will be contributing towards the Center for Autonomous Air Mobility and Sensing (CAAMS) which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

 

Payton Clem is a Master of Science Student in the Aerospace Engineering department. She is graduating from Texas A&M with her Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering with Minors in Mathematics and Astrophysics in Fall 2023. During her undergrad, she was involved in campus activities like working at the Memorial Student Center to provide support to her fellow Aggies, and was a member of P.S.U.N., an on campus organization that provides free programs and events to children with special needs. Finding an interest in research, she worked in Dr. Daniel Selva’s lab, SEAK, on a NASA SBIR project with Aureus Innovation to develop a new systems engineering language. This involved creating a satellite design from scratch using systems engineering diagrams with the SIMPL developing language. Within the SEAK lab she also assisted in developing a rule based planner that would be used in a space mission simulation for space mission design. She was also the project lead of her capstone design group, which provided a satellite constellation design, as well as mission planning software to aid in the solution of an on-orbit servicing problem for L3Harris. As she continued her research, Payton developed an interest into the applications of artificial intelligence within the aerospace engineering field. Payton became a member of VSCL in her senior year, applying her interest in AI by working on the Robust Threat Detection project, research she will continue during her Masters. Her work with VSCL will be primarily focused on Autonomous, Nonlinear Control of Air, Space and Ground Systems.

VSCL is proud to welcome two new graduate research assistants:

Jillian Bennett is a Masters of Science student in the Aerospace Engineering department. She graduated with her Bachelors of Science in Aerospace Engineering and Minor in Mathematics in Fall 2023. As an undergraduate she interned with Los Alamos National Laboratory and TAMU Material Science and Engineering, working on characterizing impacted materials. Additionally she was the lead ambassador for the Aerospace Ambassador program and a Fish Camp chair. Her work with VSCL will be primarily focused on Adaptive Control for Multiple Time Scale Systems.

 

 

 

2nd Lieutenant Noah Luna is a Masters of Science student in the Aerospace Engineering Department. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy with a Bachelors of Science in Aeronautical Engineering and Computer Science. During his undergraduate studies, he performed research on a neural network based flight control system for an ongoing fixed-wing project through the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL). Additionally, he completed an internship and further research with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works as a Software and Flight Test engineer developing nonlinear adaptive flight controls for aerial systems. At VSCL, Noah will be working on Adaptive Control for Multiple Time Scale Systems.

Maison Clouatre is an incoming Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department. He will graduate in May 2022 with a double major in electrical engineering and mathematics from Mercer University. As an undergraduate, Clouatre held visiting research positions in the Electronic Systems (ELSYS) Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory (VSCL) at Texas A&M University, and the Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems (LIDS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research interests lay at the intersection of control theory, optimization, and learning, and he focuses on applying his theory to the fields of quantum information science and aerospace engineering. Clouatre is both a Goldwater Scholar and Stamps Scholar. At VSCL, Clouatre will research quantum control and learning for quantum dynamics.

Cassie-Kay McQuinn ’21 is an M.S. student in the aerospace engineering department. Cassie-Kay has been an active member of VSCL since Fall 2021, working in system identification. She will graduate in December from Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering with Engineering Honors. In addition to completing Engineering Honors, she is a Presidential Endowed Scholar, the 2021 Aerospace Engineering Advisory Board Scholarship recipient, and has earned a certificate of Holistic Leadership in Engineering through completion of the Zachry Leadership Program. She is the current Vice President of the Texas A&M chapter of the Sigma Gamma Tau Aerospace Engineering Honor Society. As an undergraduate she interned with L3Harris Technologies working in the Structural Analysis and Structural Design departments. Cassie-Kay’s main interests include flight test engineering, aircraft dynamics and system identification.

VSCL is proud to welcome four new Ph.D. graduate research assistants:

Ian Holmes is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department, and inaugural recipient of the Department of Aerospace Engineering National EXcellence in Aerospace Sciences (NEXAS) Fellowship.  He graduated in May 2021 from the California State University, Long Beach with a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering with an emphasis in Astronautics. During his undergraduate studies, he spent three years participating in the BUILD program as an NIH-funded research assistant focused on experimental and computational high-speed impact testing. He completed his engineering honors thesis on developing computational strategies using smoothed particle hydrodynamics to simulate bird strike impacts in commercial aviation.

 

 

 

 

MD-Nazmus Sunbeam is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department. He will graduate in May 2021 from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering. During his undergraduate studies, Sunbeam worked on making a chess AI by training neural nets through evolutionary algorithms using NEAT. Additionally, he assembled and configured quadcopters, using the drone footage to train object detection neural nets. He has experience implementing convolutional neural nets on different image classification and speech recognition problems. His research interests are AI/ML/robotics. In the fall at VSCL, Sunbeam will research Enhancing the Cycle-of-Learning for Autonomous Systems to Facilitate Human-Agent Teaming, which is sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory.

 

 

 

 

Ravi Kumar Thakur is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department.  His interest is in the field of aerospace robotics and autonomy. He graduated with an MS(Research) degree in Electronics and Communication from the Indian Institute of Information Technology Sri City, Chittoor in 2019. For his thesis, he worked on developing machine learning-based models for estimating scene flow from stereo images. He earned his BS in Engineering Physics from National Institute of Technology Calicut in 2014. In the past, he was a machine learning engineer at Ford Motor Company,  where he worked on driver assistant technology with a focus on visual odometry and object tracking. Before that, he worked at the Indian Institute of science working on the development of an endoscopy simulator. At VSCL, Thakur will be working on the project Enhancing the Cycle-of-Learning for Autonomous Systems to Facilitate Human-Agent Teaming which is sponsored by Army Research Laboratory.

 

 

 

David van Wijk is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department, funded by the College of Engineering Graduate Merit Fellowship. He will graduate in May of 2021 from Cornell University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Sibley school of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. During his undergraduate studies, van Wijk was an active member in the Laboratory for Intelligent Systems and Controls under Professor Ferrari, concentrating on classical control for quadrotors, object detection, and mapping. His research contributed to a paper on Visibility-based Directional Sensor Path Planning submitted to IEEE Transactions on Robotics. He also interned at Northrop Grumman Remotec, focusing on mechanical design of hazardous duty robotic vehicles. He is interested in robotics, autonomous systems, and machine learning.

 

 

 

 

VSCL is proud to welcome two new graduate research assistants:

Esteban Gomez is a MEng student in the aerospace engineering department. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University in December 2020. During his time as an undergraduate, Esteban assisted with sensor integration, as well as flight test validation of UAS (unmanned air systems) across multiple VSCL projects. He has been an active member of VSCL since Spring 2019 and will begin working on his masters in January 2021. Esteban’s main interests include flight test engineering, embedded systems, and aircraft dynamics.

 

 

 

 

Christopher Leshikar is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department.  Chris has been an active member of VSCL since Spring 2017, working on non-linear multiple-time-scale control theory and system identification.  As an undergraduate, he attained internships with the Texas A&M University System Office of Federal Relations and the Defense Intelligence Agency (cancelled due to COVID-19).  Chris graduated with a B.S. in aerospace engineering with Engineering Honors in December 2020.  As a Graduate Research Assistant, he will be researching control of nonlinear multiple time-scale systems, and online near real-time system identification, which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

VSCL is proud to welcome four new Ph.D. graduate research assistants:

Shelby Hackett is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department. She graduated in May 2020 from the University of Florida with B.S. degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering. During her undergraduate studies, she completed an honors thesis on range optimal control for an aircraft, looking at methods for solutions that lie on a singular arc. While in school, she completed internships at Sandia National Laboratories and GE Oil & Gas as a Research & Development intern and a Manufacturing Engineering intern, respectively.  Shelby is currently interning at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM as a Research & Development intern. She will be a member of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control II group, working on improving GPS systems for defense vehicles. This is her second summer interning with Sandia. In the fall, Shelby will research Tightly Integrated Navigation and Guidance for Multiple Autonomous Agents, which is sponsored by Sandia National Laboratory.

 

 

 

Hannah Lehman  is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department.  Hannah has been an active member of VSCL since Fall 2017, focusing on human-machine interaction and the control of UAS with Machine Learning. As an undergraduate, she participated in internships with Rockwell Collins, Collins Aerospace, and the REU program. She graduated with the B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University as a University Scholar, University Honors, and Engineering Honors in May 2020. As a Graduate Research Assistant Hannah researches Tightly Integrated Navigation and Guidance for Multiple Autonomous Agents, which is sponsored by Sandia National Laboratory. She is also participating in a remote 2020 summer internship at Sandia National Laboratory with a focus on machine learning.

 

 

 

 

Nidhin Ninan is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department. He graduated from the University of Kansas with a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering. During his undergraduate studies, Nidhin worked on Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) based navigation using depth sense camera and edge detection using reinforcement learning for a Mars rover prototype being built at KU for the Mars Society’s University Rover Challenge. AT VSCL, Nidhin will be working on the Agile Technology Development (ATD)  – Air-Ground Coordinated Teaming, which is sponsored by the Army Futures Command.

 

 

 

 

 

Ravi Kumar Thakur is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department.  His interest is in the field of aerospace robotics and autonomy. He graduated with an MS(Research) degree in Electronics and Communication from the Indian Institute of Information Technology Sri City, Chittoor in 2019. For his thesis, he worked on developing machine learning-based models for estimating scene flow from stereo images. He earned his BS in Engineering Physics from National Institute of Technology Calicut in 2014. In the past, he was a machine learning engineer at Ford Motor Company,  where he worked on driver assistant technology with a focus on visual odometry and object tracking. Before that, he worked at the Indian Institute of science working on the development of an endoscopy simulator. At VSCL, Ravi will be working on the project Enhancing the Cycle-of-Learning for Autonomous Systems to Facilitate Human-Agent Teaming which is sponsored by Army Research Laboratory.

VSCL is proud to welcome four new graduate research assistants:

Ritwik Bera is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department.  He graduated with the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2018. During his undergraduate studies, Ritwik worked on modelling multi-agent systems using differential game theory. He also interned at VSCL in 2017, working on two time-scale control systems at the time. At VSCL, Ritwik works on human-in-the-loop learning to train autonomous systems to perform various tasks. Ritwik has been primarily focused on making human-in-the-loop learning scalable for real-time learning on hardware as well as developing unsupervised learning techniques to help agents learn macro-behaviors from human demonstrations.

Kameron Eves is a Ph.D. student in the aerospace engineering department.  He graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) with a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering. At BYU, Kameron worked in the Multiple Agent Intelligent Coordination and Control (MAGICC) laboratory. As part of this research, Kameron helped to develop a ground based optical tracking and imaging system capable of estimating an aircraft’s pose.  In the VSCL, Kameron will work to develop the capabilities necessary for autonomous reconnaissance in military settings. This project is a partnership with the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) at Carnegie Mellon University. Kameron’s research interests include reinforcement learning, autonomous control, and vehicle dynamics.

Blake Krpec is a Masters of Science student in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory. He has been working with his advisor, Dr. John Valasek, since the fall semester of his sophomore year (Fall 2016) as an undergraduate research assistant. During this time he assisted in flight test validation of UAS (unmanned air systems), as well as the integration of various sensors and on board computers. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University in May 2019 and began working on his masters in August 2019. In June of 2019, Blake was selected to be a Journeyman Fellow for the Army Research Lab. The work for this fellowship includes using computer vision control techniques to enable UAS to autonomously detect and navigate relative to the detected UAS. Blake’s main research interests include computer vision, controls using computer vision, and traditional controls applied to unmanned air systems.

Morgan Wood is an M.S. student in the aerospace engineering department.  He earned the Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. While in school, he studied engineering abroad at the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico, soloed in a Schweizer H300 helicopter at the University of North Dakota,  and conducted research for BAE Systems as the lead structural designer to fabricate and employ a working exoskeleton for the Air Force Research Laboratory Rapid Reaction Challenge at Kirtland Air Force Base, NM. After graduation in 2011, Morgan was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army and served for eight years in Army Aviation as an AH-64D Apache Helicopter aviator.