PI
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Zhaodan Kong
Ph.D. Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics (Minor: Cognitive Science), University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 2012 M.S. Astronautics and Mechanics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China 2006 B.S. Astronautics and Mechanics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China 2004 Position: Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Director of the Cyber-Human-Physical Systems Lab, part of the UC Davis Center for Space Exploration Research, Affiliated with the UC Davis Air Quality Research Center, the UC Davis Center for Neuroengineering & Medicine, and the UC Davis Wild Fire Group Website |
Postdocs
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Peng Wei Ph.D. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UC Davis, 2023 M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Arizona State University, 2016 B.S. Thermal and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, 2015 Position: Postdoctoral Scholar Research Area: AI & robotics for agriculture Here is an article about Peng's work. Peng is co-supervised by Dr. Stavros Vougioukas. |
PhD Students
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Ziquan Deng M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, 2019 M.S. Aerospace Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, China, 2018 B.S. Engineering Mechanics, Harbin Institute of Technology, China, 2016 Position: PhD Student, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Research Area: Explainable anatomy response |
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Prabhash Ragbir M.S. Aerospace Engineering, Queen Mary University of London, UK, 2019 B.S. Mechanical Engineering, University of the West Indies, Trinidad, 2014 Position: PhD Student, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Research Area: UAS swarms for disaster response Prabhash is a certified UAS pilot. He won the second prize in the Grad Slam competition organized by UC Graduate Studies in 2024. |
MS Students
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Chris Andrade B.S. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UC Davis, 2023 Position: Master Student, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Research Area: Advanced attitude control of satellites Chris is co-supervised by Dr. Stephen Robinson. |
Undergraduate Student Researchers
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Oliver Austin Position: Undergraduate Student, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Research Area: Novel UAV design Oliver is the lead of a team selected as one of the finalists of the 2025 NASA Gateways to Blue Skies Competition and a member of a team winning three final awards of the 2025 CITRIS Aviation Competition. Here are two articles about Oliver's work, one on AAM and the other on AgAir. |
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Alparslan Ege Erdogan Position: Undergraduate Student, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Research Area: Novel UAV design Alparslan is a member of the 2026 CITRIS Aviation Competition, a member of the winning team of the last FNL Competition, and the 111-112th Picnic Day ASUCD Exhibits Director. |
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Kailey Gotfried Position: Undergraduate Student, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Research Area: Novel UAV design Kailey is a member of the 2026 CITRIS Aviation Competition and a member of the winning team of the 2025 NASA FNL Rocketry Competition. |
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Selene Han Position: Undergraduate Student, Electrical & Computer Engineering Research Area: EEG & brain state assessment Selene is partially supported by the NSF ExLENT Program. She is co-supervised by Dr. Richard Whittle. |
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David Kim Position: Undergraduate Student, Computer Science Research Area: Computer vision for pandemic insights David is an Honors student and partially supported by the CITRIS Workforce Innovation Program. |
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Rachel Long Position: Undergraduate Student, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Research Area: UAVs for wildfires Rachel is a member of a team winning three final awards of the 2025 CITRIS Aviation Competition. Here is an article about Rachel's work on AAM. |
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Orfeas Magoulas Position: Undergraduate Student, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Research Area: Air sampler design for pandemic insights Orfeas is the lead of a team winning three final awards of the 2025 CITRIS Aviation Competition and a member of a team selected as one of the finalists of the 2025 NASA Gateways to Blue Skies Competition. Here are two articles about Orfeas' work, one on AAM and the other on AgAir. |
Former Lab Members
- Andreas Ritter Year 2025; Position: Undergraduate; Currently: Intern at Tesla
- Lucas Chis Year 2025; Position: Undergraduate; Currently: Undergraduate in MAE at UC Davis
- Yuzhang (Victor) Huang Year 2024-2025; Position: MS; First position after graduation: PhD student at UC Davis
- Kyra Ruiz Year 2025; Position: Undergraduate; Currently: Undergraduate in ME at UC Merced. Kyra was supported by the UC LEADS program.
- Luuanne Chau Year 2023-2025; Position: Undergraduate; Currently: Undergraduate in ECE at UC Davis. Luuanne was supported by the CITRIS Workforce Innovation Program and the NSF ExLENT Program.
- Yimin Qin Year 2023-2025; Position: Postdoc; First position after graduation:
- Youssef Boutros Year 2023-2024; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Symbotic. Youssef was partially supported by the AvenueE program.
- Huanglun (Adam) Zhu Year 2023-2024; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: PhD student at UC Davis
- Ashwitha Kassetty Year 2020-2023; Position: MS; First position after graduation:
- Thomas Matthews Year 2020-2023; Position: MS; First position after graduation: Lawrence Livermore National Lab
- Ashkan Zehfroosh Year 2022-2023; Position: Postdoc; Currently with the California Department of Consumer Affairs
- Qikai Gao Year 2022-2023; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation:
- Preet Amin Year 2022-2023; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: kW Engineering
- Eric Vanacker Year 2022-2023; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: InnerPlant
- Ziyan Xie Year 2021-2023; Position: MS; First position after graduation: MicroPort
- Bill Zhang Year 2022-2023; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: MidLabs
- Shuchen Ye Year 2022-2023; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: MS student at UPenn
- Faress Zwain Year 2022-2023; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: MS student at Stanford
- Gregory Bales Year 2016-2023; Position: PhD; First position after graduation: Research & Development Engineer at UC Davis
- Evan Foley Year 2020-2022; Position: MS; First position after graduation: Lockheed Martin. Here is a news story about Evan's work on using UAVs for vaccine distribution.
- Graham Bough Year 2020-2022; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Lumentum
- Jiemin Wu Year 2020-2022; Position: MS; First position after graduation: Research & Development Engineer at UC Davis
- Marie Cor Cruz Year 2020-2022; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: US Air Force
- Ayush Patnaik Year 2020-2022; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: PhD student at UC Davis
- Siddhesh Yadav Year 2020-2022; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: PhD student at UC Davis
- Shuhao Yang Year 2021-2022; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: MS student at UCLA
- Srikumar Brundavanam Year 2021; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: MS student at CMU
- Dinesh Kumar Year 2020-2021; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: MS student at UC Davis
- Jailan Sabet Year 2020-2021; Position: MS; First position after graduation: Reltio
- Ryan Liang Year 2019-2021; Position: MS; Currently with Sandia National Laboratories
- Andrew Michelmore Year: 2019-2021; Position: Volunteer; First position after graduation: Advanced Farm Technologies
- Eroz Fabian Year: 2020-2021; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Lockheed Martin
- Aravind Sreejith Year: 2018-2020; Position: MS; First position after graduation: Vicarious
- Frederica Finney-Long Year: 2019-2020; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: MS student at SFSU
- Felipe Valdez Year: 2018-2020; Position: MS; First position after graduation: NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center
- Gang Chen Year: 2015-2020; Position: PhD; Currently an Associate Professor at South China University of Technology
- Daniel Genova Year: 2017-2019; Position: MS; First position after graduation: CACI International
- Alexander Batista Year: 2016-2019; Position: MS; First position after graduation: Stryker
- Roberto Hurtado Year: 2017-2019; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Lockheed Martin
- Erina Kitamura Year: 2018-2019; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Intel
- Gabriel Simmons Year: 2017-2019; Position: Undergraduate; Currently a PhD student at UC Davis
- Grant Harman Year: 2017-2019; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: NASA Johnson Space Center
- Daniel Andenmatten Year: 2018-2019; Position: MS; First position after graduation: Pacific Gas and Electric Company
- April Lynn Teske Year: 2016-2018; Position: MS; First position after graduation: Boeing
- Naveen Gowrishankar Year: 2016-2018; Position: MS; First position after graduation: Omron Adept Technologies
- Lucas Ang Year: 2018; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: US Air Force
- Salim Hasin Year: 2015-2018; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Boeing
- Sui Nam (Jason) Chan Years: 2015-2017; Position: MS; Currently with Xwing
- Dahlia Pham Year: 2015-2017; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: NASA Ames Research Center
- Jonathan Summer Year: 2016-2017; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL)
- Tung Tran Year: 2015-2017; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Boeing
- Albert Yeh Year: 2015-2017; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions
- Eric Po Year: 2016-2017; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Tenex Health
- Anthony Thai Year: 2015-2017; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Apple
- Chenxiong Yi Year: 2016-2017; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Lumi United Technology Co.
- Wilhelmena Figueiredo Years: 2015-2016; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: PhD student at MIT
- Jimmy Tran Year: 2015-2016; Position: Undergraduate; First position after graduation: Genentech