TEAM
TEAM
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 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. Karan received the NASA LaSPACE Graduate Student Research Assistanship in 2025.
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 high-speed 3D printing and UAV control. He earned his B.S. in 2025 from the University at Buffalo and will join the lab in Fall 2025. 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
Alister Whitmore
(Freshman)
Alister joins the lab in Fall 25 and his focus is on embedded system engineering for helicopters and drones.
Tri Nguyen
(Freshman)
Tri joins the lab in Fall 25 and his focus is on building fixed-wing airplanes.
Elliott Lombardo
(Freshman)
Elliott joins the lab in Fall 25. His focus is on uncertainty quantification and global sensitivity analysis.
Heepeom Shin
(Freshman)
Heepeom joins the lab in Fall 25 and his research focuses on AI architectures for UAV estimation and control.