Marilyn Smith is a Professor in the School of Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is director of Georgia Tech's Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence (VLRCOE), where she leads a seven-university team of experts in vertical lift research for the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and NASA. She has partnered with the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) to successfully win multiple research funding mechanisms for both organizations that total more than $200 million dollars. As the director of the AE School's Computational Nonlinear Computational Aeroelasticity Lab, Prof. Smith leads an internationally recognized and award-winning research team in the areas of unsteady aerodynamics and computational aeroelasticity using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) across rotary-wing, fixed wing and launch vehicles, as well as sustainable energy. As a member of the NASA FUN3D development team, Prof. Smith contributes to state-of-the-art unstructured algorithm development, in particular for overset, moving frames. As an affiliate of the Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ASDL), she helps to integrate high performance computing with the design process. Prof. Smith is the author or co-author of more than 200 technical publications, and her research products are in active use by the US Government and other organizations, including the Drone Racing League. She is active internationally on three NATO AVT Panels investigating nonlinear gusts behaviors on UAVs and collaboration of experimental/computational aerodynamics. She is on Board of Directors of the Vertical Lift Consortium (VLC) and the Vertical Flight Society (VFS). She is also the Deputy Technical Director for Aeromechanics for the VFS. Prof. Smith has demonstrated her leadership as ARO Dynamic Stall Workshop Chair (2019); 70th AHS Annual Forum Technical Chairperson (2014); 69th AHS Annual Forum Technical Deputy Chairperson (2013); and 2014 Overset Grid Symposium (OGS) Chairperson. She was a member on the first International Aeroelastic Prediction Workshop Organizing Committee and is a member of the OGS organizing committee. Prof. Smith has been a guest expert in aviation for National Geographic, PBS, and NPR, as well as local television and numerous publications.

I am an Assistant Professor at the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing. I am also affiliated with the Georgia Tech Research Institute and serve as an Associate Director of ML@GT which is the machine learning center recently created at Georgia Tech. Previously I was a Research Scientist at SRI International Sarnoff in Princeton, and before that received my Ph.D. in 2010 with Professor Ron Arkin as my advisor. I lead the RobotIcs Perception and Learning (RIPL) lab. My areas of research specifically focus on the intersection of learning methods for sensor processing and robotics, developing novel machine learning algorithms and formulations towards solving some of the more difficult perception problems in these areas. I am especially interested in moving beyond supervised learning (un/semi/self-supervised and continual/lifelong learning) as well as distributed perception (multi-modal fusion, learning to incorporate information across a group of robots, etc.).

Larry P. Heck is a Professor with a joint appointment in the Schools of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds the Rhesa S. Farmer Distinguished Chair of Advanced Computing Concepts and is a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. His received the BSEE from Texas Tech University (1986), and MSEE and PhD EE from the Georgia Institute of Technology (1989,1991). He is a Fellow of the IEEE, inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni at Georgia Tech and received the Distinguished Engineer Award from the Texas Tech University. He was a Senior Research Engineer with SRI (1992-98), VP of R&D at Nuance (1998-2005), VP of Search and Advertising Sciences at Yahoo! (2005-2009), Chief Scientist of the Microsoft Speech products and Distinguished Engineer in Microsoft Research (2009-2014), Principal Scientist with Google Research (2014-2017), CEO of Viv Labs and SVP at Samsung (2017-2021).

Irfan Essa is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing and Senior Associate Dean in the College of Computing (CoC), at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Professor Essa works in the areas of Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, Computer Graphics, and Social Computing, with potential impact on Content Creation, Analysis and Production (e.g., Computational Photography & Video, Image-based Modeling and Rendering, etc.) Human Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Behavioral/Social Sciences, and Computational Journalism research.He has published over 150 scholarly articles in leading journals and conference venues on these topics and several of his papers have also won best paper awards. He has been awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and was elected an IEEE Fellow. He has held extended research consulting positions with Disney Research and Google Research and also was an Adjunct Faculty Member at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. He joined Georgia Tech in 1996 after his earning his Master's (1990), Ph.D. (1994), and holding a research faculty position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab (1988-1996).

Gil Weinberg is a professor and the founding director of Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, where he leads the Robotic Musicianship group. His research focuses on developing artificial creativity and musical expression for robots and augmented humans. Among his projects are a marimba playing robotic musician called Shimon that uses machine learning for Jazz improvisation, and a prosthetic robotic arm for amputees that restores and enhances human drumming abilities. Weinberg presented his work worldwide in venues such as The Kennedy Center, The World Economic Forum, Ars Electronica, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum, SIGGRAPH, TED-Ed, DLD and others. His music was performed with Orchestras such as Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the National Irish Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish BBC Symphony while his research has been disseminated through numerous journal articles and patents. Dr. Weinberg received his MS and Ph.D. degrees in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and his BA from the interdisciplinary program for fostering excellence in Tel Aviv University.

Dr. Rehg's research interests include computer vision, computer graphics, machine learning, robotics, and distributed computing. He co-directs the Computational Perception Laboratory (CPL) and is affiliated with the GVU Center, Aware Home Research Institute, and the Center for Experimental Research in Computer Science. In past years he has taught "Computer Vision" (CS 4495/7495) and "Introduction to Probabilistic Graphical Models" (CS 8803). He is currently teaching "Pattern Recognition" (CS 4803) and "Computer Graphics" (CS 4451). Dr. Rehg received the 2005 Raytheon Faculty Fellowship Award from the College of Computing. His paper with Ph.D. student Yushi Jing and collaborator Vladimir Pavlovic was the recipient of a Distinguished Student Paper Award at the 2005 International Conference on Machine Learning. Dr. Rehg currently serves on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Computer Vision. He was the Short Courses Chair for the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) in 2005 and the Workshops Chair for ICCV 2003. Dr. Rehg consults for several companies and has served as an expert witness. His research is funded by the NSF, DARPA, Intel Research, Microsoft Research, and the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories.

Note: Rehg recently moved to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the Founder Professor of Computer Science and Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering.

Lu Gan joined the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor in January 2024. She leads the Lu's Navigation and Autonomous Robotics (Lunar) Lab at Georgia Tech, and is on the core faculty of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. Her research interests include robot perception, robot learning, and autonomous navigation. Her group explores the use of computer vision, machine learning, estimation, probabilistic inference, kinematics and dynamics to develop autonomous systems in ground, air, and space applications.

She holds a B.S. in Automation from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, an M.S. in Control Engineering from Beihang University, and received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Robotics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Before joining Georgia Tech, she had a two-year appointment as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology and the Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies at Caltech.

Rebecca "Beki" Grinter is a Professor of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing & (by courtesy) the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on improving the experience of computing by understanding the human experience in the building and using of technologies. Her work contributes to the fields of human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, and computer supported cooperative work. She has also worked in the areas of robotics, networking, security, and software engineering. She has published over 80 scholarly articles, served as Papers Chair (2006) & Best Papers Chair (2010) for the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), the premier conference for human-computer interaction. In 2013 she was elected to the CHI Academy. In 2010 she was recognized as a Distinguished Alumna of the University of California, Irvine. Before joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, she was a Member of Research Staff in the Computer Science Laboratory of Xerox PARC and a Member of Technical Staff in the Software Production Research Department of Bell Laboratories. She was also a visiting scholar at Rank Xerox EuroPARC. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Information and Computer Science both from the University of California, Irvine, and a B.Sc. (Hons) in Computer Science from the University of Leeds. Affiliations GVU Center

Dr. Koki Ho is the Dutton-Ducoffe Professor, an Associate Professor, and the director of the Space Systems Optimization Group in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research focuses on developing modeling and optimization methods for rigorous space mission analysis and design. Some of his specific research interests include (1) network modeling for campaign-level space mission design; (2) optimization and probabilistic modeling for in-space logistics infrastructure design and operations; (3) design, deployment, and maintenance of mega-scale satellite constellations; and (4) sensor management for space domain awareness. His unique research connecting logistics-based modeling, optimization, systems engineering, and space applications has provided a substantial impact on modern and future space missions that involve multiple missions, multiple vehicles, and reusable infrastructure elements. Dr. Ho earned his Ph.D. at MIT and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Tokyo. He is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2020), the NASA Early Career Faculty Award (2019), the DARPA Young Faculty Award (2019), and the Luigi Napolitano Award (2015), and he is a co-author of one of the most downloaded Acta Astronautica articles. Dr. Ho served as the Chair of the AIAA Space Logistics Technical Committee in 2017-2024 and currently serves on the Steering Committee for the NASA-funded Consortium for Space Mobility and In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing Capabilities (COSMIC).

Education

• B.Eng., Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2009, University of Tokyo;
• M.Eng., Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2011, University of Tokyo;
• Ph.D., Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2015, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Distinctions & Awards

Honors:

• 2020 NSF CAREER Award
• 2019 DARPA Young Faculty Award
• 2019 NASA Early Career Faculty Award
• 2015 Luigi Napolitano Award

Yongxin Chen was born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, China. He received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong university, China, in 2011, and a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering, under the supervision of Tryphon Georgiou, from University of Minnesota in 2016. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Before joining Georgia Tech, he had a one-year Research Fellowship in the Department of Medical Physics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with Allen Tannenbaum from 2016.8 to 2017.8 and was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University from 2017.8 to 2018.8. He received the George S. Axelby Best Paper Award (IEEE Transaction on Automatic Control) in 2017 for his joint work "Optimal steering of a linear stochastic system to a final probability distribution, Part I" with Tryphon Georgiou and Michele Pavon.