People

Flight Test

Jillian Bennett

Jillian Bennett, a member of VSCL since March of 2023, graduated in May of 2023 with her Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and Minor in Mathematics. She will complete her M.S. in Aerospace Engineering with the VSCL this May and continue onto her PhD with the lab in the Fall of 2025. As an undergrad, Jillian was an active member of the Aerospace Ambassador program, becoming lead ambassador her senior year. She also welcomed freshmen to Texas A&M as a Fish Camp chair in the Summer of 2022. Additionally, in the Summer of 2022 she was the recipient of the Undergraduate Student Research Grant from Texas A&M. She has interned with Los Alamos National Laboratory and TAMU Material Science and Engineering, working on characterizing impacted materials. She has changed paths, gaining an interest in flight test engineering, reinforcement learning, and adaptive controls. She is working on her thesis project with the Office of Naval Research on Adaptive Control for Multiple Time Scale Systems. This summer, Jillian will intern with the Naval Research Laboratory in Maryland, continuing her research on adaptive, multiple time scale control. She is a two time recipient of the Aerospace Graduate Excellence Fellowship.

Garrett Jares

Garrett Jares is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, a 2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellow, and a Graduate Research Assistant in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory. Garrett earned his B.S. degree in Computer Science from Texas A&M University with minors in Cybersecurity and Mathematics, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 2017. He has been working in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory (VSCL) with his advisor, Dr. John Valasek, since his undergraduate senior capstone project in 2017. During his undergraduate education, Garrett studied extensively in cybersecurity including research in cryptography topics. Garrett’s work with VSCL has involved developing embedded systems for Unmanned Air Systems (UAS), conducting UAS flight testing operations, and overseeing the operation of the Engineering Flight Simulator Laboratory. Garrett is combining his undergraduate knowledge in Computer Science with his experience gained in Aerospace Engineering to investigate Cybersecurity for air and space vehicles.

Garrett’s doctoral dissertation investigates cyber-attacks that are designed to take control of an aircraft by targeting the vehicle’s sensor data. This research will help identify and better understand the vulnerabilities in current systems and develop safeguards against such attacks. Garrett is a recipient of the 2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the Crawford & Hattie Jackson Foundation Scholarship, the Edward C. Clay ’47 Memorial Scholarship, and the 2018 Lechner Graduate Fellowship.

Publications:

Jares, Garrett, and Valasek, John, “Flight Demonstration and Validation of Control Acquisition Autopilot Attack,” AIAA-2022, 2022 AIAA SCITECH Forum and Exposition, 6 January 2022.

Jares, Garrett, and Valasek, John, “Investigating Malware-in-the-Loop Autopilot Attack Using Falsification of Sensor Data,” FrB4.5, 2021 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Athens, Greece, 15-18 June 2021.

Jares, Garrett, and Valasek, John, “Investigating Takeover of Aerospace Systems via Falsification of Sensor Data,” AIAA-2021, 2021 AIAA AVIATION Forum and Exposition, 2 August 2021.

Katelyn Lancaster

katelyn.lancaster@tamu.edu

Katelyn Lancaster is a Senior pursuing a Bachelor’s of Science in Aerospace Engineering and a Mathematics minor. She has been an active member of VSCL since Fall 2020 working in flight test operations, system identification, and the Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) project. Katelyn will be continuing her system identification work with a fall project integrating SIDPAC analysis for our current vehicles. Katelyn has interned the previous 3 summers at Lockheed Martin working in Configuration Management and Flight Test Engineering.

Cassie-Kay McQuinn

ckmcquinn@tamu.edu

Cassie-Kay McQuinn graduated with her Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering with Summa Cum Laude and Engineering Honors, and a M.S. in Aerospace Engineering both from Texas A&M University. Her Masters thesis, titled “Online Near-Real Time Open-Loop System Identification from Closed-Loop Flight Test Data“, investigated identifying linear dynamic models onboard a vehicle in near-real time with and without an active controller. This work was performed for a small Unmanned Air System (UAS) utilizing low cost, commercial-off-the-shelf components.

Cassie-Kay is pursuing a Ph.D. and has been an active member of VSCL since Fall 2021 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 former President of the Texas A&M chapter of the Sigma Gamma Tau Aerospace Engineering Honor Society. While being a grad student she has interned with Sandia National Labs and most recently with the Air Force Research Lab researching safe autonomy for aerospace systems. As an undergraduate she interned with L3Harris Technologies working in the Structural Analysis and Structural Design departments.

Cassie-Kay’s current work investigates applying run time assurance algorithms for safety critical systems. Her interests are in the implementation of trusted autonomy, flight testing, and aircraft dynamics.

Carla Zaramella

carlazaramella@tamu.edu

Carla Zaramella, a member of VSCL since January 2022, is a first year M.E. in Aerospace Engineering student. She graduated in December 2024 with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and minor in Mathematics. She has contributed towards the System Identification Project and aided with Flight Testing. Carla has interned with Raytheon Technologies for two summers, working on land/air radar defense systems.