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 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. Karan received the NASA LaSPACE Graduate Student Research Assistanship in 2025. 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
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.
Tri Nguyen
(Freshman)
Tri joined the lab in Fall 25 and his focus is on building fixed-wing airplanes and UAV hardware integration.
Heepeom Shin
(Freshman)
Heepeom joined the lab in Fall 25 and his research focuses on AI architectures Uncertainty Quantification.
Christian Krueger
(Freshman)
Christian joined the lab in Fall 25 and his research focuses on autonomous car algorithms.
Former Students