Aeronautics and Astronautics
Showing 1-100 of 217 Results
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Mahdi Al-Husseini
Ph.D. Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, admitted Summer 2025
BioActive-duty captain and HH-60M pilot in command in the US Army, licensed professional engineer, registered patent agent, and aeronautics PhD student at Stanford University (SISL). 30+ patents and patent applications. I research multiagent system models and algorithms to improve medical evacuation, search and rescue, and wildfire surveillance and suppression operations.
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Heba Alazzeh
Affiliate, Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioResearch @ Stanford Intelligent Systems Laboratory & Stanford Mineral-X
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Juan Alonso
Vance D. and Arlene C. Coffman Professor and the James and Anna Marie Spilker Chair of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioProf. Alonso is the founder and director of the Aerospace Design Laboratory (ADL) where he specializes in the development of high-fidelity computational design methodologies to enable the creation of realizable and efficient aerospace systems. Prof. Alonso’s research involves a large number of different manned and unmanned applications including transonic, supersonic, and hypersonic aircraft, helicopters, turbomachinery, and launch and re-entry vehicles. He is the author of over 200 technical publications on the topics of computational aircraft and spacecraft design, multi-disciplinary optimization, fundamental numerical methods, and high-performance parallel computing. Prof. Alonso is keenly interested in the development of an advanced curriculum for the training of future engineers and scientists and has participated actively in course-development activities in both the Aeronautics & Astronautics Department (particularly in the development of coursework for aircraft design, sustainable aviation, and UAS design and operation) and for the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME) at Stanford University. He was a member of the team that currently holds the world speed record for human powered vehicles over water. A student team led by Prof. Alonso also holds the altitude record for an unmanned electric vehicle under 5 lbs of mass.
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Manan Arya
Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsManan Arya leads the Morphing Space Structures Laboratory. His research is on structures that can adapt their shape to respond to changing requirements. Examples include deployable structures for spacecraft that can stow in constrained volumes for launch and then unfold to larger sizes in space, terrestrial structures with variable geometry, and morphing robots. Key research thrusts include lightweight fiber-reinforced composite materials to enable innovative designs for flexible structures, and the algorithmic generation of the geometry of morphing structures – the arrangement of stiff and compliant elements – to enable novel folding mechanisms.
He has published more than 20 journal and conference papers and has been awarded 5 US patents. Prior to joining Stanford, he was a Technologist at the Advanced Deployable Structures Laboratory at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, where he developed and tested breakthrough designs for space structures, including deployable reflectarrays, starshades, and solar arrays. -
Somil Bansal
Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioSomil Bansal is an assistant professor at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford. Before joining Stanford, he was an assistant professor in the ECE department at the University of Southern California. He received an MS and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) from the University of California at Berkeley in 2014 and 2020, respectively. Before that, he obtained a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2012. After his PhD, he spent a year as a Research Scientist at Waymo (formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car project). He has also collaborated closely with companies like Skydio, Google, Boeing, as well as NASA AMES/JPL. Somil is broadly interested in developing mathematical tools and algorithms for the control and analysis of safety-critical autonomous and robotic systems, with a special emphasis on ensuring the safety of learning-enabled systems. Somil has received several awards, most notably the NSF CAREER award, the Eli Jury Award at UC Berkeley for his doctoral research, the RSS Pioneer Award, and the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award.
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Juan Blanch
Sr Research Engineer
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research focuses on the design of navigation integrity algorithms for safety critical applications (like air navigation and autonomous driving). I am interested in both the design of practical algorithms that provide the required safety margins, and in the theoretical limits on the performance of the integrity monitoring algorithms.
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Brian Cantwell
Edward C. Wells Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus
BioProfessor Cantwell's research interests are in the area of turbulent flow. Recent work has centered in three areas: the direct numerical simulation of turbulent shear flows, theoretical studies of the fine-scale structure of turbulence, and experimental measurements of turbulent structure in flames. Experimental studies include the development of particle-tracking methods for measuring velocity fields in unsteady flames and variable density jets. Research in turbulence simulation includes the development of spectral methods for simulating vortex rings, the development of topological methods for interpreting complex fields of data, and simulations of high Reynolds number compressible and incompressible wakes. Theoretical studies include predictions of the asymptotic behavior of drifting vortex pairs and vortex rings and use of group theoretical methods to study the nonlinear dynamics of turbulent fine-scale motions. Current projects include studies of fast-burning fuels for hybrid propulsion and decomposition of nitrous oxide for space propulsion.
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Fu-Kuo Chang
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioProfessor Chang's primary research interest is in the areas of multi-functional materials and intelligent structures with particular emphases on structural health monitoring, intelligent self-sensing diagnostics, and multifunctional energy storage composites for transportation vehicles as well as safety-critical assets and medical devices. His specialties include embedded sensors and stretchable sensor networks with built-in self-diagnostics, integrated diagnostics and prognostics, damage tolerance and failure analysis for composite materials, and advanced multi-physics computational methods for multi-functional structures. Most of his work involves system integration and multi-disciplinary engineering in structural mechanics, electrical engineering, signal processing, and multi-scale fabrication of materials. His recent research topics include: Multifunctional energy storage composites, Integrated health management for aircraft structures, bio-inspired intelligent sensory materials for fly-by-feel autonomous vehicles, active sensing diagnostics for composite structures, self-diagnostics for high-temperature materials, etc.
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Adam Ctverak
Masters Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, admitted Autumn 2024
BioAdam is a Master's student in Aeronautics & Astronautics specializing in strategic technology and hypersonic missile defense. As a Defense Innovation Unit Summer Fellow, he co-leads the development of a High Altitude Infrared Search and Track (HAIRST) platform designed to defend key regional assets against hypersonic threats. The project secured DoD support and successfully conducted multiple flight tests. Previously, under a NASA SBIR contract, Adam developed new experimental methods to sinter lunar regolith, producing bricks intended for lunar landing pads. He is a passionate skier and certified scuba diver.
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Simone D'Amico
Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioSimone D’Amico is Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AA), W.M. Keck Faculty Scholar in the School of Engineering, Associate Professor of Geophysics (by Courtesy), Science Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Chief Science Officer at EraDrive Inc. He is the Founding Director of the Stanford Space Rendezvous Laboratory, Founding Co-Director of the Center for AEroSpace Autonomy Research (CAESAR), and Director of the Undergraduate Program in Aerospace Engineering at Stanford. He has 23+ years of experience in research and development of autonomous spacecraft and distributed space systems. He developed and deployed the distributed Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) system of several formation-flying, rendezvous and proximity operations missions such as GRACE (NASA/DLR), PRISMA (OHB/DLR/CNES/DTU), TanDEM-X (DLR), BIROS (DLR) and PROBA-3 (ESA). Currently, he is the institutional PI of four autonomous satellite swarms funded by NASA (STARLING, STARI) and by NSF (VISORS, SWARM-EX). Dr. D'Amico is Fellow of AAS, Associate Fellow of AIAA, Associate Editor of the AIAA's JGCD and he is in the Advisory Board of four space start-ups focusing on distributed space systems for future applications in SAR remote sensing, orbital lifetime prolongation, and space-based solar power. He was the recipient of several awards, most recently the 2024 NASA Ames Honor Award for the Starling mission, Best Paper Awards at IAF (2022), IEEE (2021), AIAA (2021), AAS (2019) conferences, the M. Barry Carlton Award by IEEE (2020), the Leonardo 500 Award by the Leonardo da Vinci Society/ISSNAF (2019), FAI/NAA’s Group Diploma of Honor (2018), DLR’s Sabbatical/Forschungssemester (2012) and Wissenschaft Preis (2006), and NASA’s Group Achievement Award for the GRACE mission (2004). He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Politecnico di Milano (2003) and the Ph.D. degree from Delft University of Technology (2010).
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Luigi Di Lillo
Affiliate, Program-Pavone, M.
BioAt Stanford, my work bridges autonomous systems, safety, and insurance through probabilistic risk modeling under uncertainty and in sparse-data regimes.
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Arpit Dwivedi
Masters Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, admitted Autumn 2024
BioArpit Dwivedi is pursuing his MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. He received Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering with Honours and with Minor in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2024. His main research interests are in the robot learning, and control of autonomous systems, with an emphasis on self-driving cars, and space vehicles.
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Duncan Eddy
Postdoctoral Scholar, Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioDuncan Eddy is a research fellow in the Stanford University Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He completed his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Stanford, funded by the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. His current research is focused on decision-making in safety-critical, climate, and space systems, where operational decisions must be made quickly and correctly in complex environments while still being explainable and understandable by human stakeholders.
He is currently the Executive Director of the Stanford Center for AI Safety, and a post-doctoral researcher with appointments in Mineral-X and the Stanford Intelligent Systems Laboratory (SISL).
Prior to this, He started and led the Spacecraft Operations Group at Capella Space, the first US Commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar Earth Imaging constellation. There he developed the first fully-automated mission operations system, realizing lights-out tasking-to-delivery of radar satellite data for a commercial constellation. He subsequently started and led the Constellation Operations and Space Safety Groups at Project Kuiper. Most recently, he was a Principal Applied Scientist at Amazon Web Services, where he worked on building software services for large-scale distributed edge compute applications. -
Sigrid Elschot
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioSigrid Elschot is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and founding director of the Space Environment and Satellite Systems laboratory. Her research focuses on understanding and mitigating the space environment to enable more resilient spacecraft for interplanetary and interstellar exploration. Her work includes space weather detection and modeling, which is central to Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Domain Awareness (SDA), achieved by integrating in situ and remote sensing data with high fidelity simulations to characterize space hazards. Current efforts include experimental and computational studies of hypervelocity dust and debris impacts on spacecraft using dust accelerators, light-gas guns, and Particle-In-Cell simulations, and ground-based radar to remotely characterize space debris and meteoroid populations. Prof. Elschot also leads research programs in hypersonic plasma physics relevant to atmospheric re-entry vehicles, and space energy harvesting for spacecraft power and propulsion. Prof. Elschot has been the recipient of several awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), NSF CAREER award, DoE CAREER award, Outstanding Mentor Award and Outstanding Professor in Aeronautics and Astronautics.
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Anton Ermakov
Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and, by courtesy, of Geophysics and of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am interested in the formation and evolution of the Solar System bodies and the ways we can constrain planetary interiors by geophysical measurements.
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Charbel Farhat
Vivian Church Hoff Professor of Aircraft Structures and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsCharbel Farhat and his Research Group (FRG) develop mathematical models, advanced computational algorithms, and high-performance software for the design, analysis, and digital twinning of complex systems in aerospace, marine, mechanical, and naval engineering. They contribute major advances to Simulation-Based Engineering Science. Current engineering foci in research are on reliable autonomous carrier landing in rough seas; dissipation of vertical landing energies through structural flexibility; nonlinear aeroelasticity of N+3 aircraft with High Aspect Ratio (HAR) wings; pulsation and flutter of a parachute; pendulum motion in main parachute clusters; coupled fluid-structure interaction (FSI) in supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerators for Mars landing; flight dynamics of hypersonic systems and their trajectories; and advanced digital twinning. Current theoretical and computational emphases in research are on high-performance, multi-scale modeling for the high-fidelity analysis of multi-component, multi-physics problems; discrete-event-free embedded boundary methods for CFD and FSI; efficient Bayesian optimization using physics-based surrogate models; modeling and quantifying model-form uncertainty; probabilistic, physics-based machine learning; mechanics-informed artificial neural networks for data-driven constitutive modeling; and efficient nonlinear projection-based model order reduction for time-critical applications such as design, active control, and digital twinning.
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Ian Fu
Ph.D. Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, admitted Autumn 2024
Masters Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, admitted Spring 2026Current Research and Scholarly InterestsPlanetary Science, Ocean worlds and Icy Satellites, Space Missions, Autonomy
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Grace Gao
Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering
BioGrace Gao is an associate professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, with a courtesy appointment in the Electrical Engineering Department. She leads the Navigation and Autonomous Vehicles Laboratory (NAV Lab) and serves as co-director of the Stanford AI Safety Center and co-lead of the Stanford SystemX Robotics area. Her research focuses on robust and secure perception, localization, and navigation, with applications in crewed and uncrewed aerial vehicles, autonomous cars, humanoid robots, and space robotics.
Prof. Gao has won numerous awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, the Institute of Navigation Early Achievement Award, the RTCA William E. Jackson Award, and the Inspiring Early Academic Career Award from Stanford University. In addition to her research achievements, she has received significant recognition for her teaching and advising, including the AIAA Stanford Chapter Excellence in Advising Award and the Excellence in Teaching Award. -
Harold Gardon
Masters Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, admitted Autumn 2025
BioFrench student specializing in mechanical engineering. Passionate about basketball and aerospace, I am pursuing a Master of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics and hope to specialize in rocket propulsion.
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Kentaro Hara
Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioKen Hara is an Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. He received a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering and a Graduate Certificate in Plasma Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan, and B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the University of Tokyo. He was a Visiting Research Physicist at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellow. Professor Hara’s research interests include electric propulsion, low temperature partially ionized plasmas, plasma physics (plasma-wall interactions, plasma-wave interactions, kinetic and fluid instabilities), data assimilation, rarefied gas flows, and computational fluid and plasma dynamics. He is a recipient of the Air Force Young Investigator Program Award, the Department of Energy Early Career Award, and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award.
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Suning Huang
Ph.D. Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, admitted Autumn 2024
BioRobotics researcher, dedicated in learning & control.
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Dr. G. Scott Hubbard
Affiliate, Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioDr. Hubbard's research interests include the study of both human and robotic exploration of space with a particular focus on technology and missions for planetary exploration, especially Mars. Prof. Hubbard is also an expert on the emerging entrepreneurial space industry and is the Director Emeritus of the Stanford Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation (COE CST). As part of his ongoing engagement with robotic Mars missions, Hubbard serves as a member of National Academy of Science review groups and as a frequent consultant to NASA projects. Current topics include the Mars Sample Return architecture and studying the infusion of science objectives into human exploration missions. Dr. Hubbard's commercial space interests examine policies to enable, facilitate and promote such ventures. As the former Director of NASA's Ames Research Center, he maintains an active connection to the space exploration community. Hubbard is also the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal New Space.
Brief Biography: Dr. Scott Hubbard has been a leader in space exploration for almost 50 years. His career includes a National Lab, a start-up venture, NASA, and Stanford. At NASA, Dr. Hubbard is best known as Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, the first Mars Program Director (aka the "Mars Czar"), and the founder of NASA's Astrobiology Institute. As the sole NASA member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), Hubbard’s work demonstrated the definitive technical cause of the accident. At Stanford, Hubbard has been very active in the emerging entrepreneurial space enterprise, establishing a peer-reviewed journal New Space, and creating the Stanford Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation., From 2012 to 2023 Hubbard chaired the SpaceX Commercial Crew Safety Advisory Panel. Although now retired from teaching and advising he continues to serve on various committees for the National Academy, NASA and other groups. He is the author of the award winning "Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery" and his many honors include eight NASA medals including NASA’s highest recognition, the Distinguished Service Medal. Dr. Hubbard is also an Honorary Fellow of the AIAA. A brief video of Hubbard's career may be viewed at https://vimeo.com/172038243. More background is available at https://gscotthubbard.com/ including Hubbard's lifelong passion for playing music.
Selected Honors
2022 Elected Cosmos Club, Distinguished in Space Science
2019 Honorary Fellow, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
2018 Vanderbilt Student Media Hall of Fame
2016 Henry Clay Distinguished Kentuckian Award
2016 NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal for NASA Advisory Council
2013 Kentucky Aviation Museum Hall of Fame
2013 Bronze Medal in Science; “Exploring Mars”, Independent Publishers Book Awards
2007 Challenger Learning Center Distinguished Achievement Award.
2006 Carl Sagan Memorial Award by the American Astronautical and Planetary Societies
2006 Presidential Meritorious Rank Senior Executive
2006 Doctor Honoris Causa Polytechnic University of Madrid
2005 NASA Exceptional Service Medal for Columbia Accident Board report
2004 Distinguished Service Medal (NASA’s Highest Award) for demonstrating the physical cause of the Columbia accident
2004 Engineering Science Award, International Academy of Astronautics
2004 Von Kármán medal in the field of Astronautics
2003 Elected Fellow, AIAA
2002 NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for Mars Odyssey
2001 NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for Mars Program Restructuring
1999 NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for Lunar Prospector Mission
1998 “Laurels” from Aviation Week for Lunar Prospector
1998 NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for Mars Pathfinder Project
1997 “Laurels” from Aviation Week for Mars Pathfinder
1994 NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for creation of Mars Pathfinder mission. -
Fabio Hübel
Graduate Visiting Researcher Student, Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioVisiting Student Research at Marco Pavone's Group (Autonomous Systems Lab).
Master Thesis in autonomous navigation and exploration for quadrupeds. -
Antony Jameson
Professor (Research) of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Emeritus
BioProfessor Jameson's research focuses on the numerical solution of partial differential equations with applications to subsonic, transonic, and supersonic flow past complex configurations, as well as aerodynamic shape optimization.
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Mykel Kochenderfer
Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI and Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Computer Science
BioMykel Kochenderfer is Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. Prior to joining the faculty, he was at MIT Lincoln Laboratory where he worked on airspace modeling and aircraft collision avoidance, with his early work leading to the establishment of the ACAS X program. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh and B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Stanford University. Prof. Kochenderfer is the director of the Stanford Intelligent Systems Laboratory (SISL), conducting research on advanced algorithms and analytical methods for the design of robust decision making systems. Of particular interest are systems for air traffic control, unmanned aircraft, and other aerospace applications where decisions must be made in uncertain, dynamic environments while maintaining safety and efficiency. Research at SISL focuses on efficient computational methods for deriving optimal decision strategies from high-dimensional, probabilistic problem representations. He is an author of "Decision Making under Uncertainty: Theory and Application" (2015), "Algorithms for Optimization" (2019), and "Algorithms for Decision Making" (2022), all from MIT Press. He is a third generation pilot.
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Aditya Kothari
Masters Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, admitted Autumn 2025
Reader/Grader - Graduate, WagerBioAditya is an MS Aero/Astro student at Stanford. He works at the intersection of flight sciences and controls and has a background in vehicle systems engineering, aerodynamics, propulsions, structures and new product development. He led his university UAV team as the Captain and spearheaded the development and testing of over seven award winning UAVs including eVTOLs, eSTOLs, eCTOLs and other projects. Many of his past projects involve industry collaboration like those with GKN Aerospace, AIRBUS, Honeywell Aerospace and Forbes Marshall. He was also associated with ASME-VIT as the Chief Editor for ASME Technical Blogs and a member of the AIAA and the Rotaract NGO.
Outside of work he likes to hike and loves to play badminton and other racquet sports. -
Ilan Kroo
Thomas V. Jones Professor in the School of Engineering
BioProfessor Kroo's research involves work in three general areas: multidisciplinary optimization and aircraft synthesis, unconventional aircraft, and low-speed aerodynamics. Current research in the field of aircraft synthesis, sponsored by NASA and industry, includes the development of a new computational architecture for aircraft design, and its integration with numerical optimization. Studies of unconventional configurations employ rapid turnaround analysis methods in the design of efficient subsonic and supersonic commercial aircraft. Recent research has included investigation of configurations such as joined wings, oblique wings, and tailless aircraft. Nonlinear low-speed aerodynamics studies have focused on vortex wake roll-up, refined computation of induced drag, the design of wing tips, and the aerodynamics of maneuvering aircraft.
