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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!

VSCL Undergraduate Carla Zaramella graduated in December 2024 with her Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering. Carla will be joining VSCL as a Masters student starting in Spring 2025. She has been an active member of VSCL since January 2022 and has contributed towards the System Identification project and aided with Flight Testing. Carla has interned with Raytheon Technologies over the last two summers, working on land/air radar defense systems.

In October Dr. John Valasek reached a career milestone by presenting at his 100th invited seminar/lecture/panelist.

Chronologically:

#1 “Fighter Agility Metrics, Research, and Test,” Lockheed Advanced Development Projects Division (Skunk Works), Burbank, CA, 13 July 1990.

#100 “Multiple-Time-Scale Nonlinear Output Feedback Control of Systems With Model Uncertainties,” Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 9 October 2024.

Congratulations Dr. Valasek!

Cassie-Kay McQuinn graduated with her MS degree in aerospace engineering. Cassie is the 60th graduate student advised to completion of their degree by Dr. Valasek, and the title of her thesis is “Online Near-Real Time Open-Loop System Identification from Closed-Loop Flight Test Data”. This work is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Autonomous Air Mobility & Sensing (CAAMS) as one part of the project “Integration of System Theory with Machine Learning Tools for Data Driven System Identification”. Cassie investigated identifying state-space linear dynamic models generated onboard in near-real time, for vehicles with and without an active flight controller.

Cassie is continuing on to the PhD with VSCL, and her dissertation will be based upon work she has been conducting on STARS (Safe Trusted Autonomy for Responsible Spacecraft) during a year-round internship for the Air Force Research Laboratory.

        

In conjunction with Dr. Moble Benedict (AVFL Lab – TAMU), Dr Puneet Singla (CASS Lab – Penn State), and Dr. Randy Beard (MAGICC Lab – BYU), Dr. Valasek presented the current updates of the System Identification project at the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAAMS Summer Industry Advisory Board Meeting.

The project “Integration of System Theory with Machine Learning Tools for Data Driven System Identification” integrates system theory with machine learning tools for data driven system identification. The objective is to derive nonlinear dynamical models by employing a unique handshake between linear time varying subspace methods and sparse approximation tools from high fidelity flight simulations and flight experiments.

The center is a partnership between academia, industry, and government to offer pre-competitive research in autonomous air mobility and sensing. Pictured (left to right) are Undergraduate Researcher Halle Vandersloot, PhD student Cassie-Kay McQuinn, Dr. Valasek, and TAMU AERO alum and VP of Engineering of VectorNav Dr. Jeremy Davis.

VSCL hosts Mr. Clay Chen, an entrepreneur interested in UAS systems. Mr. Chen met with VSCL lab director Dr. Valasek and VSCL graduate and undergraduate students  to discuss the UAS research and platform developments that VSCL conducts at the flight testing facility.

Many students of the Texas A&M Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory have been selected for offsite internships for the Summer of 2023. These internships show VSCL student representation at a variety of companies and institutions across the United States. Students which have been selected for internships in the Summer of 2023 include:

VSCL Graduate Research Assistant and Ph.D Student Chris Leshikar has been selected for a Summer 2023 internship with the Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation this summer in Savannah, GA. Chris will be working in the Flight Dynamics group on system identification methods and analyses for jets going through the certification process.

 

 

 

 

 

VSCL Graduate Research Assistant and Ph.D Student Hannah Lehman has been selected for a Summer 2023 research internship at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM. Hannah has been working as a Year-Round Research & Development Intern since 2020, with a principal focus of applying machine learning to defense vehicles.

 

 

 

 

 

VSCL Graduate Research Assistant and MS student MD-Nazmus Sunbeam has been selected for a Summer 2023 internship with Starfish Space in Seattle, WA. Sunbeam will be working on computer vision / navigation DL algorithms for space vehicles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

VSCL Graduate Research Assistant and MS Student Cassie-Kay McQuinn has been selected for a Summer 2023 research internship at the Airforce Research Labatory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, OH.

 

 

 

 

 

 

VSCL Graduate Research Assistant Jillian Bennett has been selected for a Summer 2023 research internship with VSCL. Jillian will be starting the adaptive time scale control project.

 

 

 

 

VSCL Undergraduate Research Assistant Seth Johnson has been selected for a Summer 2023 internship with VectorNav in Dallas, TX. Seth will be working as a Nevigation Engineer.

VSCL Undergraduate Research Assistant Yuki Janvier has been selected for a Summer 2023 internship with Atlassian in Austin, TX. Yuki will be working as a Software Engineering Intern.

VSCL Undergraduate Research Assistant Katelyn Lancaster has been selected for a Summer 2023 internship with Lockheed Martin in Marietta, GA. Katelyn will be doing Test and Evaluation engineering.

VSCL Undergraduate Research Assistant Carla Zaramella has been selected for a Summer 2023 internship with Raytheon in Tewsbury, MA. Carla will be working as a “Whole Life Program – Systems Engineering Intern” in RTX Missiles and Defense. She will be working with a team to ensure that hardware and systems are effective, reliable and maintainable, the goal of WLE.

VSCL Undergraduate Research Assistant Laura Escamilla has been selected for a Summer 2023 research internship with VSCL. Laura will be working with a Vector nav calibration for the anaconda, and will support the Robust Threat Detection project.

VSCL Undergraduate Research Assistant Abby Andrews has been selected for a Summer 2023 research internship with Impact Systems Engineering in Temple, TX. Abby will be working with 4200 and 5200 3D printers, with her role primarily focusing on de-powering parts and structuring builds units.

VSCL Undergraduate Research Assistant Payton Clem has been selected for a Summer 2023 research internship with VSCL. Payton will be working with systems architecture on the Robust Threat Detection project.

VSCL graduate student Dr. Kameron Eves has graduated with his Doctor of Philosophy on May 13th in Aerospace Engineering.

VSCL graduate student Dr. Garrett Jares has graduated with his Doctor of Philosophy on May 13th in Aerospace Engineering.

VSCL graduate student Esteban Gomez has graduated with his Master of Science on May 13th in Aerospace Engineering.

VSCL graduate student Connor Atkins has graduated with his Master of Science on May 13th in Aerospace Engineering.

VSCL undergraduate student Alexander Gross has graduated with his Bachelors on May 12th in Aerospace Engineering.

VSCL undergraduate student Cameron Brooks has graduated with his Bachelors on May 12th in Aerospace Engineering.

VSCL undergraduate student Lauren Herrera has graduated with her Bachelors on May 12th in Aerospace Engineering.

VSCL undergraduate student Jillian Bennett has graduated with her Bachelors on May 12th in Aerospace Engineering.

 

 

VSCL graduate student Kameron Eves will present a paper in May at the 2023 American Control Conference (ACC) in San Diego, California.

Kameron Eves will be presenting the paper “Adaptive Control for Non-minimum Phase Systems Via Time Scale Separation,”. Adaptive control for non-minimum phase systems remains a challenging problem. Eves proposes a method of adaptive control for systems that may be both nonlinear and non-minimum phase. This is accomplished by exploiting time scale separation between the internal and external dynamics.

 

Garrett Jares (B.S. Computer Science, Texas A&M University) successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled “Control Acquisition Attack of Feedback Control System by False Data Injection”.   Garrett is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support his research in Aerospace Cybersecurity.  Garrett has accepted a position as a Research Engineer with Southwest Research Institute. He is currently a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Cybersecurity Working Group, and his main research interests include cybersecurity and cryptography applied to air and space systems.  Congratulations Garrett, all of VSCL is very proud of you and your accomplishments!