I am a fourth year PhD student in mechanical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a focus in controls for symbiotic autonomous systems.

Research Interests

Fundamentally, the question that drives my research is how humans can build our technology and devices so that we achieve peak performance together. I integrate engineering and cognitive science perspectives in my approach to symbiotic human-machine autonomy (also called shared autonomy). My focus is modeling human-autonomy interaction in complex systems such as robotics and transportation as a dynamical system, rather than from a social or data-driven perspective.

Professional Profile

I am a mechanical engineering PhD student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. I am also a Pathways intern at NASA’s Ames Research Center, where I work on the Digital Information Platform and the Human-Autonomy Teaming lab. For DIP, I work on algorithms and methods for fine-tuning large-language models for aviation. In the HAT lab, I am working on human modeling for future urban air mobility applications.

Although my research focuses on the most efficient methods for teams to accomplish goals, my professional path has been less direct. My undergraduate degree is in physics from Texas A&M University, and my juris doctor is from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. Before RPI, I worked as a patent litigation attorney at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. Through my work at both firms, I discovered my true love of learning and controls engineering, which led me to leave my legal career and start my PhD.