Seth Johnson is a senior pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering with minors in Mathematics and Computer Science. He has been an active member of VSCL since Spring 2022. He has worked on various projects throughout VSCL including the Center for Autonomous Air Mobility and Sensing, Cycle of Learning, and Robust Threat Detection. Seth has interned with VectorNav Technologies, Draper Laboratory, and he has participated in the Undergraduate Summer Research – REU Program. In 2024, he was the Advanced Class Autonomous Systems Design Lead for the Texas A&M SAE Aero Design Team where he now serves as a Technical Advisor. His research focuses on autonomous systems, software architecture, and integrated flight systems, with an emphasis on modular, scalable frameworks for real-world deployment. His work spans avionics software development, system integration, and flight-test-driven research supporting both academic and applied autonomy efforts.
Ella Joliet
Ella Joliet is a senior Aerospace Engineering student from Indianapolis, Indiana. She is interested in flight test engineering and is currently in pursuit of her Private Pilot’s License. She recently returned from a semester studying abroad in Alicante, Spain followed by an internship in Supply Chain at United Airlines. Joliet intends to graduate in 2026 with a Bachelor’s of Science and Minors in Math and Spanish.
Samantha Jones
Samantha Jones is a senior from Brownsville, TX. In pursuit of her aspirations to have a career in the aerospace industry and work for the Department of Defense, Samantha maintains several leadership roles on campus. Aside from VSCL, she is a part of the AggieSat Laboratory. Within AggieSat Laboratory, Samantha acts as Shadow Corp Director and has previously held positions such as Outreach Co-Manager and TMS member for both rover building teams. She was also the 23-24 Outreach Co-Chair for SWE.
Most recently, Samantha has taken on the role of Socials Director for Women in Geosciences, an organization she has been part of since Fall 2024. Lastly, she works for the K-12 Outreach Program known as Spark! Samantha is extremely passionate about aeronautics and space exploration and is ecstatic to use the knowledge she acquires at VSCL to propel her career and set herself apart.
Katelyn Lancaster
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.
Reza Langari
JR Thompson Endowed Chair and Department Head, Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Affiliated Faculty, Aerospace Engineering
Affiliated Faculty, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Noah Luna
2nd Lieutenant Noah Luna, USAF, is a Master’s student in the aerospace engineering department. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy with a B.S. degree 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. He has been selected to go to pilot training after earning his Master’s degree from Texas A&M. At VSCL, Noah will be working on Adaptive Control for Multiple Time Scale Systems.
Evelyn Madewell
Evelyn Madewell earned her B.S. in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering with a minor in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington in May 2024. As an undergraduate researcher in the Autonomous Flight Systems Lab, she worked on wilderness search and rescue, hazard-aware landing optimization, and beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations, presenting this work at the 2024 AIAA SciTech Forum. She also completed industry internships as a flight test engineer at Freefly Systems and with Hood Technology, focusing on UAV flight testing and GPS-denied visual navigation.
Evelyn joined the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory (VSCL) at Texas A&M University in Fall 2024, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering focused on Dynamics and Controls. At Texas A&M, she has contributed to the Real-time System Identification of UAS project and has participated extensively in flight test activities. In Summer 2025, she interned with Stratolaunch, working on guidance, navigation, and control for the Talon A vehicle. She is a recipient of the Aerospace Graduate Excellence Fellowship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Her research interests include flight test engineering, system identification, and guidance, navigation, and control for autonomous systems.
Isabela Martínez Banda
Isabela Martínez Banda graduated in Spring 2025 with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and minors in Computer Science and Mathematics. She has been a active member in the lad since Fall of 2024, working on MOSA LINA a modular open system software architecture for small UAVs. She interned at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics the summers of 2023, 2024, and 2025 working on store separation and weapon flight testing. She is currently working on her Masters of Engineering in Aerospace Engineering.
Dayton Mattern
Dayton Mattern is a freshman Honors Engineering student from Plano, Texas who plans to major in Aerospace Engineering with a Mathematics and History Minor. While in VSCL, she worked on the robust threat detection project, helping simulate and tune an LQR dynamics controller and is now working on learning general classical, RL, and adaptive control methods.
Scott McHarg
Pilot
Private Pilot ASEL
Civilian Contractor/Instructor for the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines flying the RQ-2 Pioneer UAV ’93-‘96
3,300 logged hours as an External Pilot
2011 US National Vice Champion in Precision Aerobatics
Futaba Factory Team Pilot
Castle Factory Team Pilot
Texas A&M UAS Supervising Authority Committee Member
Texas A&M RELLIS Operations Committee Member
Advisor for TAMU SAE Aero Design Team, TAMU AIAA Design Build Fly (DBF), and Society of Sonic Flight Engineers (SFSS)
Texas A&M AERO402 Senior CAPSTONE Design Instructor