Payton Clem is a second-year Master of Science student in Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, working in the Vehicle Stability and Controls Laboratory (VSCL). She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, with minors in Mathematics and Astrophysics, in Fall 2023.
During her undergraduate studies in Dr. Daniel Selva’s SEAKERS lab, she contributed to a NASA SBIR project on systems engineering and led a capstone team designing a satellite constellation for L3Harris. Her interest in artificial intelligence applications in aerospace engineering led her to join VSCL.
At VSCL, her research primarily involves developing a reinforcement learning controller for a target tracking problem involving a hostile target, with environmental factors like wind and sun incorporated for concealment (Robust Threat Detection, sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory). She is also contributing to the Cycle of Learning project, also sponsored by ARL, which investigates leveraging human modalities in AI training.
Through these projects and her broader work in the lab, she has gained extensive experience in conducting and managing flight tests to validate her research. Her primary interests lie in autonomous, nonlinear guidance, navigation, and control for aerial systems, as well as flight testing.
Zachary Curtis
Zachary Curtis graduated from Utah Tech, in May 2024 with a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering. 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.
Chantz Elliott
Chantz Elliott graduated in Spring of 2024 with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in Computer Science. He has been an active member of VSCL since Fall of 2023, working on flight test validation of small fixed-wing aircraft at RELLIS. Chantz interned at Air Tractor during the summer of 2023 and will be interning at Scaled Composites for the summer of 2024 before returning to Texas A&M to pursue a Master of Engineering in Aerospace 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.
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.
MD-Nazmus Sunbeam
MD-Nazmus Sunbeam is a M.S. student in the aerospace engineering department. He graduated 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.
Carla Zaramella
Carla Zaramella, a member of VSCL since January 2022, is a second year M.E. in Aerospace Engineering student. She graduated in December 2024 with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and minor in Mathematics. As an undergraduate, she contributed towards the System Identification Project and aided with Flight Testing. As a graduate student, she is a Teaching Assistant for a junior-level flight dynamics course and contributed towards MARBLES and the 6-DOF Linear Flight Simulator.
Carla has interned with Raytheon Technologies for two summers, working on land/air radar defense systems. She also interned at Bristol Myers Squibb in their supply chain department, where her primary focus was optimizing and streamlining existing supply chain processes through data analytics and integration of decision intelligence.