Group Alumni

KEITH BOURNE 2003-04

First undergraduate honors student working on a project in vehicle metrology and visualization. Now at UIUC pursuing his PhD degree.

EMPAR CALLEJAS  2004-05

Visiting international exchange graduate student from Spain specializing in matching scale-to-full-size vehicle behavior, with side project on Hydrogen combustion. Now working for Bostik, a multinational adhesive company in Spain.
amparo.callejas at bostik com  or emparcallejasm at iqs dot url dot edu

JOHN CAMERON  2003-05

John was one of our first Master's students, defending on Nov. 2005  working on vehicle dynamic modeling for the prediction and prevention of vehicle rollover. He's now at Harris Robotics in their Satellite Deployment group.

ADAM DEAN   2005-08

Adam joined the group in Fall 2005 after graduating with his Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Utah State University. His expertise is on problems involving simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) using multi-robot coordination, three-dimensional localization, adaptive control and tank dynamics. After graduation he accepted a faculty position at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Brigham Young University, Utah.

JUSTIN ELLIS  Summer 2005

Justin was a summer research intern studying macro to meso/micro scaling of control laws for a buckling beam-type setup.

ANDREW GLUMAC  2005-06

Andrew was a undergraduate working on his honors thesis. His project required him to  match the behavior of scale-size vehicle tires to the performance of full-size vehicle tires, including fabrication of new tire designs and experimental testing. He graduated in May 2006.

MARIONA GOMEZ  2005-06

Mariona was an exchange research student from Barcelona, Spain. She worked on accident scenarios at a smaller scale as well as completion of the micro/macro beam experiment. She now works at the Headquarters of Nestle in Barcelona in the Engineering & Packaging department.
mgjunyent at hotmail com

VISHISHT GUPTA   2004-09

Vishisht is in his third year of graduate school and is pursuing his Doctorate. He is the group expert in robust system implementation, circuit fabrication and layout, DSP systems and CAN bus architecture. When he is not running the undergraduate mechatronics labs, he is researching integrated sensor solutions for fault-tolerant vehicle state estimation and guidance.

HAFTAY HAILU   2004-06

Haftay joined the group in 2004 transferring relatively late in his doctorate degree program. His research involved development of scaling-oriented control theory, model reduction and system similarity, and structured robust control techniques. Haftay was an NSF GREAT fellow, and graduate in May 2006. He is now working for Honeywell Aerospace and teaches at UCLA.

BRIDGET HAMBLIN  2005-07

Bridget joined the group in Fall 2005 after graduating with her Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio.  Her interest in vehicle dynamics is based on the potential to make driving safer by preventing accidents, and worked on projects for NCHRP 22-21 analyzing the influence of highway geometries on accident causation using vehicle dynamics simulations. She is also an NSF GREAT fellow.

CHRISTIAN HUBICKI   2007-08

Christian joined the group in 2007.  He was involved in developing improved engine starter systems for the HEMTT ground military vehicle. 

JANINE KOWALCZYK  2005-06

Janine graduated in December 2006. As an honor's project, she tested control algorithms to prevent vehicle rollover with a primary focus on limit-handling inputs and threshold conditions predicting sliding versus rollover. Janine is from near Cleveland, OH. She is now working with the Boeing Satellite Development Center in El Segundo, CA

RYAN MARTINI   2004-06

Ryan started in the group studying some novel projects, including laser-based vehicle measurement (hence the picture). He graduated with his M.S. in Summer 2006 with his final project on GPS/INS integration to measure vehicle dynamics and vehicle localization based on road grade. Ryan was an NSF GREAT fellow, and is now working for GM Powertrain.

VIPUL MEHTA  2005-06

Vipul joined the group from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay pursuing his Doctorate. For a year he worked on a DARPA project on robotic snake locomotion and modeling. He is currently completing his PhD studying design and optimization in the Engineering Design and Optimization Group.

GARETH E. MURRAY Jr.  Summer 2005

Gareth did an undergraduate summer internship working on meso to macro comparison of vehicle dynamics using a rolling roadway testbed, specializing in tire dynamics. He is now pursuing an MS degree at the London School of Theology.

SARVANAN MUTHIA 2005-06

Saravanan joined the group in Fall 2005 in a joint project with Prof. Bohdan Kulakowski on modeling of bus reliability, and comparing these results obtained from PTI testing to in-service bus reliability. He graduated in Fall 2006.

MICHAEL PETERSHEIM   2004-08

Michael originally joined the group as an undergraduate workstudy. After graduating with his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State this past May, he continued his M.S. work on the study of distributed hardware-in-the-loop architectures for testing advanced vehicle powertrains under the DOE GATE program.

DENNIS PLANK  2006-07

Dennis joined the group in Fall 2006 as a senior mechanical engineer working on his undergraduate Honors thesis. He created a modular instrumentation system that can be used to rapidly measure tire properties on many vehicles. After graduation, he accepted a position with Honda R&D in Raymond, OH as a Chassis Design Engineer.

ALEXIA RUIZ 2006-07

Alexia joined the group as an international exchange student (Barcelona, Spain) in Summer 2006. Her expertise is on embedded systems, and her projects included developing microprocessor interfaces to PC's, vision-based sensing and control, and coordination of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

JON WEIDNER 2006-07

Jon joined the group in Fall 2006 as a senior mechanical engineer working on his undergraduate Honors thesis. He studied the dynamics and stability of tractor-trailer systems.

NAN YU 2006-07

Nan joined our group in 2006 to finish up his thesis, originally under the late Bohdan Kulakowski. Nan's expertise in vehicle dynamics, simulation, and control theory were a welcome addition to our group. He finished his PhD in Spring 2007.

JOSEPH YUTKO 2006-08

Joe joined the group in Fall 2006 after graduating with B.S. Mechanical Engineering from Wilkes University (PA). His research, sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), included validating the PTI Bus Testing Program and developing methodologies to predict vehicle subsystem component failures. After graduating, he accepted a full-time position at Caterpillar.