Lu Gan

Lu Gan
lgan@gatech.edu
Lunar Lab @ GT

Lu Gan joined the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor in January 2024. She leads the Lu's Navigation and Autonomous Robotics (Lunar) Lab at Georgia Tech, and is on the core faculty of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. Her research interests include robot perception, robot learning, and autonomous navigation. Her group explores the use of computer vision, machine learning, estimation, probabilistic inference, kinematics and dynamics to develop autonomous systems in ground, air, and space applications.

She holds a B.S. in Automation from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, an M.S. in Control Engineering from Beihang University, and received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Robotics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Before joining Georgia Tech, she had a two-year appointment as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology and the Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies at Caltech.

Assistant Professor - School of Aerospace Engineering
Office
Guggenheim 448A
Additional Research
Computer VisionPerception & NavigationRobot AutonomyFlight Mechanics & ControlsHuman-Robot Interaction
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=mVY8wE8AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
AE Profile Page Personal Website

Brian Gunter

Brian Gunter
brian.gunter@ae.gatech.edu
Reaearch Website

Dr. Gunter is an Assistant Professor in Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Rice University, and later his M.S. and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in orbital mechanics. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Dr. Gunter was on the faculty of the Delft University of Technology (TU-Delft) in the Netherlands, as a member of the Physical and Space Geodesy section. His research activities involve various aspects of spacecraft missions and their applications, such as investigations into current and future laser altimetry missions, monitoring changes in the polar ice sheets using satellite data, applications of satellite constellations/formations, and topics surrounding kinematic orbit determination. He has been responsible for both undergraduate and graduate courses on topics such as satellite orbit determination, Earth and planetary observation, scientific applications of GPS, and space systems design. He is currently a member of the AIAA Astrodynamics Technical Committee, and also serves as the Geodesy chair for the Fall AGU Meeting Program Committee. He has received a NASA group achievement award for his work on the GRACE mission, and he is also a former recipient of a NASA Earth System Science Graduate Fellowship. He is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and the International Association of Geodesy (IAG).

Associate Professor
Phone
404.385.2345
Office
ESM 205
Additional Research
satellite geodesy; space systems; orbital mechanics; Earth and planetary observation; remote sensing
Research Focus Areas
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=ba8fWHIAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

Karen M. Feigh

Karen M. Feigh
karen.feigh@gatech.edu
AE Page

Karen M. Feigh is a Professor at Georgia Tech's Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering with a courtesy appointment in the School of Interactive Computing. As the director of the Georgia Tech Cognitive Engineering Center, she leads a research and education program focused on the computational cognitive modeling and design of cognitive work support systems and technologies to improve the performance of socio-technical systems. She is responsible for undergraduate and graduate level instruction in the areas of flight dynamics, human reliability analysis methods, human factors, human-automation interaction and cognitive engineering. Feigh has over 14 years of relevant research and design experience in fast-time air traffic simulation, ethnographic studies, airline operation control centers, synthetic vision systems for helicopters, expert systems for air traffic control towers, human extra-vehicular activities in space, and the impact of context on undersea warfighters. Recently her work has focused on human-autonomy teaming and the human experience of machine learning across a number of domains.

Feigh has served as both Co-PI and PI on a number of FAA, NIA, ONR, NSF and NASA sponsored projects. As part of her research, Feigh has published 35 scholarly papers in the field of Cognitive Engineering with primary emphasis on the aviation industry. She serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making. She previously served as the Chair to the Human Factor and Ergonomics Society’s Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making Technical Group, and on the National Research Council’s Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB).

Professor & Associate Chair for Research; School of Aerospace Engineering
Director; Georgia Tech Cognitive Engineering Center
Phone
404.385.7686
Office
MK 321-3
Additional Research
Cognitive engineering; human factors; adaptive automation
Research Focus Areas
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=y1cHmVMAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

Yongxin Chen

Yongxin  Chen
yongchen@gatech.edu
Personal Page

Yongxin Chen was born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, China. He received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong university, China, in 2011, and a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering, under the supervision of Tryphon Georgiou, from University of Minnesota in 2016. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Before joining Georgia Tech, he had a one-year Research Fellowship in the Department of Medical Physics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with Allen Tannenbaum from 2016.8 to 2017.8 and was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University from 2017.8 to 2018.8. He received the George S. Axelby Best Paper Award (IEEE Transaction on Automatic Control) in 2017 for his joint work "Optimal steering of a linear stochastic system to a final probability distribution, Part I" with Tryphon Georgiou and Michele Pavon.

Assistant Professor; School of Aerospace Engineering
Phone
404.894.2765
Office
Guggenheim 448B
Additional Research
control theory; optimal mass transport; machine learning; robotics; optimization
Research Focus Areas
IRI And Role
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=X8BYiV4AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

Panagiotis Tsiotras

Panagiotis  Tsiotras
tsiotras@gatech.edu
AE Page

Dr. Tsiotras holds the David & Andrew Lewis Endowed Chair in the School of Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is also associate director at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. His current research interests include nonlinear and optimal control and their connections with AI, planning, and decision-making, emphasizing autonomous ground, aerial, and space vehicles applications. He has published more than 350 journal and conference articles in these areas. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, Dr. Tsiotras was an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Virginia. He has also held visiting appointments with the MIT, JPL, INRIA, Rocquencourt, the Laboratoire de Automatique de Grenoble, and the Ecole des Mines de Paris (Mines ParisTech). Dr. Tsiotras is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the IEEE Technical Excellence Award in Aerospace Controls, the Outstanding Aerospace Engineer Award from Purdue, the Sigma Xi President and Visitor's Award for Excellence in Research, as well as numerous other fellowships and scholarships. He is currently the chief editor of the Frontiers in Robotics & AI, in the area of space robotics, and an associate editor for the Dynamic Games and Applications journal. In the past, he has served as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, the IEEE Control Systems Magazine, and the Journal of Dynamical and Control Systems. He is a Fellow of the AIAA, IEEE, and AAS.

Professor & David and Andrew Lewis Chair; School of Aerospace Engineering
Associate Director, Institute for Robotics & Intelligent Machines
Phone
404.894.9526
Office
Knight 415C
Additional Research
controls; robotics; artificial intelligence; flying robots; spacecraft
Research Focus Areas
IRI And Role
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qmVayjgAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

Evangelos Theodorou

Evangelos Theodorou
etheodorou3@mail.gatech.edu
AE Page

Evangelos Theodorou earned his Diploma in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Crete (TUC), Greece in 2001. He has also received a MSc in Production Engineering from TUC in 2003, a MSc in Computer Science and Engineering from University of Minnesota in spring of 2007 and a MSc in Electrical Engineering on dynamics and controls from the University of Southern California(USC) in Spring 2010. In May of 2011 he graduated with his Ph.D., in Computer Science at USC. After his Ph.D., he became a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle. In July 2013 he joined the faculty of the school of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology as Assistant Professor. His theoretical research spans the areas of control theory, machine learning, information theory and statistical physics. Applications involve autonomous planning and control in robotics and aerospace systems, bio-inspired control and design.

Associate Professor; School of Aerospace Engineering
Phone
404.894.8197
Office
Guggenheim 448A
Additional Research
Nonlinear Stochastic Optimal Control; Machine Learning and Reinforcement Learning; Statistical Mechanics; Information Theory and Connections to Control Theory; Nonlinear State Estimation and Signal Processing; Adaptive; Nonlinear and Model Predictive Control.
Research Focus Areas
IRI And Role
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=dG9MV7oAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

Marilyn Smith

Marilyn Smith
marilyn.smith@ae.gatech.edu
AE Profile Page

Marilyn Smith is a Professor in the School of Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is director of Georgia Tech's Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence (VLRCOE), where she leads a seven-university team of experts in vertical lift research for the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and NASA. She has partnered with the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) to successfully win multiple research funding mechanisms for both organizations that total more than $200 million dollars. As the director of the AE School's Computational Nonlinear Computational Aeroelasticity Lab, Prof. Smith leads an internationally recognized and award-winning research team in the areas of unsteady aerodynamics and computational aeroelasticity using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) across rotary-wing, fixed wing and launch vehicles, as well as sustainable energy. As a member of the NASA FUN3D development team, Prof. Smith contributes to state-of-the-art unstructured algorithm development, in particular for overset, moving frames. As an affiliate of the Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ASDL), she helps to integrate high performance computing with the design process. Prof. Smith is the author or co-author of more than 200 technical publications, and her research products are in active use by the US Government and other organizations, including the Drone Racing League. She is active internationally on three NATO AVT Panels investigating nonlinear gusts behaviors on UAVs and collaboration of experimental/computational aerodynamics. She is on Board of Directors of the Vertical Lift Consortium (VLC) and the Vertical Flight Society (VFS). She is also the Deputy Technical Director for Aeromechanics for the VFS. Prof. Smith has demonstrated her leadership as ARO Dynamic Stall Workshop Chair (2019); 70th AHS Annual Forum Technical Chairperson (2014); 69th AHS Annual Forum Technical Deputy Chairperson (2013); and 2014 Overset Grid Symposium (OGS) Chairperson. She was a member on the first International Aeroelastic Prediction Workshop Organizing Committee and is a member of the OGS organizing committee. Prof. Smith has been a guest expert in aviation for National Geographic, PBS, and NPR, as well as local television and numerous publications.

Professor; School of Aerospace Engineering
Director; Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence
Phone
404.894.3065
Office
Weber 202
Additional Research
aeroelasticity; aerodynamics; computational fluid dynamics
Research Focus Areas
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=lEKsoQIAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence

Jonnalagadda V R Prasad

Jonnalagadda V R Prasad
jvr.prasad@aerospace.gatech.edu
AE Profile Page

Dr. J.V.R. Prasad is a professor in the School of Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology working in the area of flight mechanics and control. He received his B.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India and his M.S and Ph.D. degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. He is currently a co-principal investigator and the associate director for the US Army, Navy and NASA sponsored Vertical Lift Rotorcraft Center of Excellence (VLRCOE) program at Georgia Tech. He has extensive research and design experience in rotorcraft system modeling and control, propulsion system modeling and control, and autonomous air vehicle modeling and control. He published parts of four books, sixty refereed journal papers, more than 250 conference papers and 80 research project reports. He has 18 invention disclosures and five patents to his credit. He is a recipient of the 2009 Melville Medal award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the 2015 Aero Lion Technologies Outstanding Journal Paper award from the International Journal of Unmanned Systems. He served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Helicopter Society (AHS), chair of the Handling Qualities and UAV Tech Committees of the AHS, and as member and secretary of the Atmospheric. Flight Mechanics Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He currently serves as a member of the editorial board for the International Journal on Mathematical Modeling and Simulation and the advisory board for the International Journal of Unmanned Systems. He is a Fellow of the AIAA, a Technical Fellow of the AHS and a member of the ASME.

Professor; School of Aerospace Engineering
Associate Director; Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence
Phone
404.894.3043
Office
Knight 421A
Additional Research
Flight Mechanics & Controls
Research Focus Areas
IRI And Role
Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence

Glenn Lightsey

Glenn Lightsey
glenn.lightsey@gatech.edu
AE Profile Page

E. Glenn Lightsey is the John W. Young Chair Professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech. He currently serves as the interim director for the Space Research Initiative at Georgia Tech. Previously, he was the director of the Space Systems Design Lab from 2016-2023 and Center for Space Technology And Research at Georgia Tech from 2019-2023. 

Lightsey’s research program focuses on the technology of small satellites, including: guidance, navigation, and control systems; attitude determination and control; formation flying, satellite swarms, and cooperative control; proximity operations and unmanned spacecraft rendezvous; space based Global Positioning System receivers; radionavigation; propulsion; satellite operations; and space systems engineering. His group has built and operated several spacecraft for government sponsors. 

Lightsey has co-authored more than 180 technical articles and publications, including four book chapters. He is an AIAA Fellow and a Founding Member of the AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee. He is Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Small Satellites. In the past he served as Associate Editor of the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics and Associate Editor of the AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. Lightsey was previously employed at the University of Texas at Austin and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Interim Director, Space Research Initiative
John W. Young Chair Professor, Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
Phone
404.385.4146
Office
ESM 110A/B
Additional Research
Small Satellites, Guidance and Control, and Spacecraft Technology.
Research Focus Areas
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=EFUhzfYAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
Space Research Initiative

Kyriakos Vamvoudakis

Kyriakos Vamvoudakis
kyriakos@gatech.edu
AE Profile Page

Kyriakos G. Vamvoudakis was born in Athens, Greece. He received the Diploma (a 5 year degree, equivalent to a Master of Science) in Electronic and Computer Engineering from Technical University of Crete, Greece in 2006 with highest honors. After moving to the United States of America, he studied at The University of Texas at Arlington with Frank L. Lewis as his advisor and he received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2008 and 2011 respectively. From May 2011 to January 2012, he was working as an Adjunct Professor and Faculty Research Associate at the University of Texas at Arlington and at the Automation and Robotics Research Institute. During the period from 2012 to 2016 he was a project research scientist at the Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was an assistant professor at the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech until 2018. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor at The School of Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research interests include approxIMaTe dynamic programming, game theory, and optimal control. Recently, his research has focused on cyber-physical security, networked control, smart grid and multi-agent optimization. Dr. Vamvoudakis is the recipient of a 2019 ARO YIP award, a 2018 NSF CAREER award, and of several international awards including the 2016 International Neural Network Society Young Investigator (INNS) Award, the Best Paper Award for Autonomous/Unmanned Vehicles at the 27th Army Science Conference in 2010, the Best Presentation Award at the World Congress of Computational Intelligence in 2010, and the Best Researcher Award from the Automation and Robotics Research Institute in 2011. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu and Golden Key honor societies and is listed in Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, and Who's Who in America. He has also served on various international program committees and has organized special sessions for several international conferences. He currently is a member of the Technical Committee on Intelligent Control of the IEEE Control Systems Society (TCIC), a member of the Technical Committee on Adaptive Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (ADPRLTC), an Associate Editor of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine, an Associate Editor of the Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, an Editor in Chief of the Communications in Control Science and Engineering, a registered Electrical/Computer engineer (PE) and a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece. He is a Senior Member of IEEE.

Assistant Professor; School of Aerospace Engineering
Phone
404.385.3342
Office
Montgomery Knight 415B
Additional Research
Control Theory; Reinforcement Learning; Cyber-Physical Systems; Defense/National Security
IRI And Role
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=4hWyM_gAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate