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. He also received minors in mathematics and business. At BYU, Kameron worked in the Multiple Agent Intelligent Coordination and Control (MAGICC) laboratory. At the VSCL, Kameron fills a variety of roles. He spent two years designing, building, and testing a 50 lb multirotor unmanned air vehicle (UAV) for the army to use in autonomous reconnaissance. Kameron was responsible for the software, embedded systems, and dynamic analysis of this UAV. Kameron’s dissertation topic is Adaptive Control for Multiple Time Scale Systems with specific application to hypersonic aircraft. Kameron’s research interests are theoretical and computational dynamics and control of aerospace systems. Additionally, he is interested in engineering teaching methods in higher education. Professionally, he plans to join academia and teach at a university.
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.
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MD-Nazmus Sunbeam
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.
Erin Swansen
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).
Hannah Lehman
Hannah Lehman graduated in May 2020 with a Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University. She has accepted a Graduate Research Fellowship and has joined the Ph.D. program in aerospace engineering starting summer 2020. Dr. John Valasek serves as her research Advisor and Chair of dissertation committee. 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.
Hannah has been an active member of VSCL since Fall 2017, focusing on human-machine interaction and the control of UAS with Machine Learning. She graduated with the B.S. degree in aerospace engineering as a University Scholar, University Honors, and Engineering Honors in May 2020. She has been awarded the 2020 Graduate Merit Fellowship, 2019/2020 AIAA Foundation Cary Spitzer Digital Avionics Scholarship, the 2019 Gathright Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Junior in the College of Engineering, and placed 1st in the 2018 AIAA Region IV Student Paper Conference.
Christopher Leshikar
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.