TEAM
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Education
PhD in Mechanical Engineering, University at Buffalo (2024)
MS in Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Berlin (2019)
BS in Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Berlin (2016)
Ph.D. Students
Karan Baker
(Graduate Research Assistant)
Karan's research focuses on precision motion control and uncertainty quantification. He was a National Merit Scholar and completed his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at Louisiana State University (USA), where he also earned a B.S. in History with a double major in 2024. During his Ph.D. he received the NASA LaSPACE Graduate Student Research Assistanship in 2025 and NSF EPSCoR LINK award in 2026. Karan oversees the interview process for undergraduate student applicants and provides recommendations for selection.
Nyi Nyi Aung
(Graduate Research Assistant)
Nyi Nyi's research is specialized in electrical and mechanical control systems. He completed his M.Sc. in Sustainable Transportation and Electrical Power Systems in 2024 via the Erasmus Mundus Joint Degree Program, with Paderborn University (Germany), University of Oviedo (Spain), University of Nottingham (UK), and Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). He earned his B.E from Yangon Technological University, Myanmar in 2018.
Sean Maki
(Graduate Research Assistant)
Sean specializes in autonomous driving, vibration control, and UAV control. He earned his B.S. in 2025 from the University at Buffalo. During his undergraduate studies, he interned at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he contributed to beamline experiments, and at Aurubis, a metal ore mining company based in Buffalo. Sean received the NASA LaSPACE Graduate Student Research Assistanship in 2025.
✉️ smaki1@lsu.edu
M.S. Students
Sanjay Maharjan
Sanjay specializes in developing an autonomous drone with computer vision and prediction to capture rogue UAVs. He earned his B.S. in 2021 from the University of Evansville, Indiana. He works part-time at Bancroft Automated Restaurant Systems Inc. as a Chief Mechanical Engineer.
Undergraduate Students
Dutch Dunphy
(Junior)
Dutch has been with the lab since Feb. 2025. His research focuses on building a Gantry Crane where is expertise lies in CAD modeling. Dutch received the NASA LaSPACE Undergraduate Research Assistantship in 2025.
Bradley Wight
(Junior)
Bradley joined the lab in Feb. 2025. His research focuses on open loop controller design. Bradley received the NASA LaSPACE Undergraduate Research Assistantship in 2025. Bradley is currently an intern at Bayer.
Yousuf Atteia
(Sophomore)
Yousuf joined the lab in 2024. His research focuses on CAD design, hardware integration, embedded system engineering, and autonomous control of UAVs. Yousuf received the NASA LaSPACE Undergraduate Research Assistantship in 2025. He also received the NASA LaSPACE GPS scholarship in 2026.
Mark Mills
(Junior)
Mark joined the lab in 2025. His research focuses on CAD design, UAV testing, and hardware integration. Mark received the Supervised Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) award in 2025 from NSF EPSCoR/LaRegents. Mark is currently an intern at ExxonMobil.
Carter Burdette
(Junior)
Carter joined the lab in 2025. His research focuses on vibration control of soft materials and electronic assembly. Carter received the Supervised Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) award in 2025 from NSF EPSCoR/LaRegents.
Neil Muralles
(Junior)
Neil joined the lab in 2025. His current research focuses on designing a liquid metal distribution device. He also works on object identification algorithms using AI. He is responsible for all Blender animation of the lab. Neil received the NASA LaSPACE Undergraduate Research Assistantship in 2025.
Darren Johnson
(Junior)
Darren joined the lab in Fall 2025. His project is the CAD design, hardware integration, and testing of small drones. Darren also leads the project of testing new forms of intelligent PID controllers on UAVs. Darren received the S & B Engineers and Constructors Scholarship in Spring 2026. He also received the NASA LaSPACE GPS scholarship in 2026.
Abigail Lawlor
(Junior)
Abigail joined the lab in Fall 2025. She assists the lab by designing AI architectures for object identification and path prediction of drones.
Tri Nguyen
(Freshman)
Tri joined the lab in Fall 25 and his focus is on building fixed-wing airplanes and UAV hardware integration.
Sang Nguyen
(Freshman)
Sang joined the lab in Fall 25 and his focus is on vibration controller design and uncertainty quantification.
Tariq Hlayel
(Freshman)
Tariq joined the lab in Fall 25 and his focus is on UAV hardware integration and drone operation.
Alister Whitmore
(Freshman)
Alister joined the lab in Fall 25 and his focus is on embedded system engineering for helicopters and drones.
Animesh Bangal
(Sophomore)
Animesh joined the lab in Fall 25 and his research focuses on controller design for UAVs. He received the LSU Gulf Scholars Award which funds him to conduct autonomous UAV research in our lab in Summer 2026.
Peyton Ardoin
(Freshman)
Peyton joined the lab in Fall 25. His work deals with modelling, assembling, and testing a gantry crane structure.
Elliott Lombardo
(Freshman)
Elliott joined the lab in Fall 25. His focus is on uncertainty quantification and global sensitivity analysis.
Peyton Bell
(Freshman)
Peyton joined the lab in Fall 25 and her research is on biomedical actuator design.
Heepeom Shin
(Freshman)
Heepeom joined the lab in Fall 25 and his research focuses on AI architectures Uncertainty Quantification.
Ericka Dusek
(Junior)
Ericka joined the lab in Fall 25 and her research focuses on CAD Design. She also programs in Arduino for data collection.
Christian Krueger
(Freshman)
Christian joined the lab in Fall 25 and his research focuses on autonomous car algorithms.
Danny Galeas
(Freshman)
Danny joined the lab in Spring 26 and his research focuses on autonomous car algorithms and CAD Design.
Khoa Do
(Freshman)
Khoa joined the lab in Spring 26 and his research focuses on autonomous driving.
Former Students
Johannes Güttler
(Senior)
Johannes joined the lab in Summer 25 and his research focus was on Uncertainty Quantification for time-dependent systems.
Grant Gueho
(Junior)
Grant worked in the lab in Fall 2025. His work dealt with object identification using computer vision algorithms for autonomous cars.
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