School of Engineering
Showing 1-5 of 5 Results
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Bradford Parkinson
Edward C. Wells Professor in the School of Engineering, Emeritus
BioProfessor Bradford Parkinson was the Chief Architect for GPS, and led the original advocacy for the system in 1973 as an Air Force Colonel. Gaining approval, he became the first Director of the GPS Joint Program Office and led the original development of spacecraft, Master Control Station and 8 types of User Equipment. He continued leadership of the Program through the extensive test validation Program, including being the Launch Commander for the first GPS satellite launches. This original deployment of GPS demonstrated comfortable margins against all PNT (Positioning, Navigation, and Timing) requirements.
Earlier in his career, he was a key developer of a modernized AC-130 Gunship, introduction of which included 160 hours of combat missions. He was an instructor at the USAF Test Pilot School. In addition he led the Department of Astronautics and Computer Science at the US Air Force Academy. He retired from the US Air Force as a Colonel.
He was appointed a Professor at Stanford University in 1984, after six years of experience in industry. At Stanford University, he led the development of many innovative applications of GPS, including:
1.Commercial aircraft (Boeing 737) blind landing using GPS alone,
2.Fully automatic GPS control of Farm Tractors on a rough field to an accuracy of 2 inches,
3.Pioneering the augmentation to GPS (WAAS) that allows any user to achieve accuracies of 2 feet and very high levels of integrity assurance.
He has been the CEO of two companies, and serves on many boards. He is the editor/author of the AIAA Award winning 2 Volumes: “GPS Theory and Applications” and is author or coauthor of over 80 technical papers.
Among his many awards is the Draper Prize of the National Academy of Engineering, considered by some to be the “Engineering Nobel”. -
M Elisabeth Pate-Cornell
Burton J. and DeeDee McMurtry Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor, by courtesy, of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioDr. Marie-Elisabeth Paté-Cornell is the Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor in the School of Engineering, and a Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University (2000-2011). Previously, she was the Professor and Chair of the Stanford Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management and an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at MIT. Her specialty is engineering risk analysis with application to complex systems (seismic risk, space systems, medical procedures and devices, offshore oil platforms, cyber security, etc.). Her earlier research has focused on the optimization of warning systems and the explicit inclusion of human and organizational factors in the analysis of systems’ failure risks. Her more recent work is on the use of game theory in risk analysis with applications that have included counterterrorism and cyber security.
She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering where she chairs the section of Interdisciplinary Engineering and Special Fields, of the French Académie des Technologies, and of the NASA Advisory Council. She is co-chair of the committee of the National Academies (NASEM) on risk analysis methods for nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. She is a Fellow (and past president) of the Society for Risk Analysis and of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science. She is the author of more than one hundred publications, with several best paper awards, and the co-editor of a book on Perspectives on Complex Global Problems (2016). She was a member of the Board of Advisors of the Naval Postgraduate School, which she chaired from 2004 to 2006, and of the Navy War College. Dr. Paté-Cornell was also a member of the President’s (Foreign) Intelligence Advisory Board (2001-2008), of the board of the Aerospace Corporation (2004-2013) of Draper Laboratory (2009-2016), and of InQtel (2006-2017). She was awarded the Frank Ramsey Medal of the Decision Analysis Society, the 2021 IEEE Ramo medal in Systems Engineering and Science, and the 2022 PICMET Award for Leadership in Technology Management. She is a Fellow (and past president) of the Society for Risk Analysis and of the Institute for Management Science and Operations Research, and a Distinguished Vising Scientist of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is the author of more than one hundred publications, for which she got several best paper awards, and the co-editor of a book on Perspectives on Complex Global Problems (2016). She holds a BS in Mathematics and Physics, Marseille (France), an Engineering degree (Applied Math/CS) from the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble (France), an MS in Operations Research and a PhD in Engineering-Economic Systems, both from Stanford University.
She and her late husband, Dr. Allin Cornell had two children, Philip Cornell (born 1981) and Ariane Cornell (1984). She is married to Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. (US Navy, Ret.). -
Marco Pavone
Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering & of Computer Science
BioDr. Marco Pavone is an Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, where he directs the Autonomous Systems Laboratory and the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford. He is also a Distinguished Research Scientist at NVIDIA where he leads autonomous vehicle research. Before joining Stanford, he was a Research Technologist within the Robotics Section at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He received a Ph.D. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010. His main research interests are in the development of methodologies for the analysis, design, and control of autonomous systems, with an emphasis on self-driving cars, autonomous aerospace vehicles, and future mobility systems. He is a recipient of a number of awards, including a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Barack Obama, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, a National Science Foundation Early Career (CAREER) Award, a NASA Early Career Faculty Award, and an Early-Career Spotlight Award from the Robotics Science and Systems Foundation. He was identified by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) as one of America's 20 most highly promising investigators under the age of 40. His work has been recognized with best paper nominations or awards at a number of venues, including the European Conference on Computer Vision, the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the European Control Conference, the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, the Field and Service Robotics Conference, the Robotics: Science and Systems Conference, and the INFORMS Annual Meeting.
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Robert Phelts
Research Engineer
BioR. Eric Phelts is a research engineer in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. His research involves signal monitoring techniques and analysis for SBAS, GBAS, and ARAIM.
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J David Powell
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus
BioEDUCATION:
1960 - B.S. Mechanical Engineering, M.I.T.
1966 - M.S. Aeronautics & Astronautics, Stanford
1970 - Ph.D. Aeronautics & Astronautics, Stanford
EXPERIENCE:
1960-1961 - Engine Design and Testing Engineer at Outboard Marine Corp.
1961-1967 – Engineer at Lockheed in the field of Aerospace Guidance and Control
1967-1968 – Engineer at Analytical Mechanics Associates
1968-1970 – Engineer, Systems Control, Inc. Parameter ID of aircraft models from flight data, automatic generation of approach paths for Air Traffic Control. Attended Stanford University specializing in control systems.
1971 – 1998 – Member of the Stanford Faculty in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department. His research has included spacecraft pointing, space tether dynamics and control, internal combustion engine control, the design of aerospace digital flight control systems, GPS-based attitude determination augmented with inertial sensors, and the use of GPS for air and land vehicle surveillance and navigation. He taught courses in aerospace control including radio and inertial navigation, optimization and digital implementations and is a coauthor of two of the leading control textbooks. He is also an author or coauthor on over 100 papers.
1998 – present – Emeritus faculty carrying out research in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford Univ. Recent focus of research is the use of GPS-based attitude determination augmented with inertial sensors, applications of the FAA’s WAAS for enhanced pilot displays, flight inspection of aircraft landing systems, and the use of WAAS and new displays to enable closer spacing of parallel runways.
SOCIETY MEMBERSHIPS
AIAA (Fellow), ASME (Fellow), SAE, IEEE, ION
CONSULTANT TO: (over past several years)
Seagull Technology
Sequoia Instruments
Engine Control and Monitoring
Transparent Networks
Pratt and Whitney (Technical Advisory Committee)
Sensor Platforms
OTHER RECENT ACTIVITIES
Co-Founder, CEO, and Director of GyroSat Corp. 1999 – 2000
Director of Sequoia Instruments, 2001 – 2005
Aircraft owner and licensed instrument pilot
National Research Council Panel member for the review of NASA airspace activities, 2003
Board of Directors, Mechanics Bank, Richmond, CA., 2003 – 2015
Board of Directors, ExactBid, Inc. 2014-present.