Melkior Ornik is an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, also affiliated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory, as well as the Discovery Partners Institute in Chicago. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto in 2017. His research focuses on developing theory and algorithms for control, learning and task planning in autonomous systems that operate in uncertain, changing, or adversarial environments, as well as in scenarios where only limited knowledge of the system is available. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, his recent work has been extensively funded by NASA grants and Department of Defense programs, and he has been selected for the 2023 Air Force YIP award.

Sheng Cheng received the B.Eng. degree in control science and engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology in China, in 2014, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland in 2018 and 2021, respectively. He is a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. His current research interests include aerial robotics, learning-enabled control, adaptive control, distributed parameter systems.

Dr. Pan Zhao is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He received a B.E. degree in Automation and an M.S. degree in Mechatronics Engineering from Beihang University, China, in 2009 and 2012, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, in 2018. Dr. Zhao’s current research interests include control theory with a focus on robust and adaptive control, robotics, autonomous systems, machine learning for control and decision making, and applications to aerospace and agricultural systems.

Dr. Hyung-Jin Yoon is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. He earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Hanyang University, South Korea, in 2006 and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019. From 2006 to 2013, he worked as a Simulation and Test Engineer at Hyundai Motor Company. Dr. Yoon's research interests focus on estimation, decision-making, and cyber-physical systems (CPS). He is particularly interested in decision-making under uncertainties and the trade-off between exploration and exploitation.

Aditya Gahlawat is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Advanced Controls Research Laboratory (ACRL) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA. He received the Ph.D. degree in automatique-productique from Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France, in 2015 and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA in 2017.,His main research interests include infinite-dimensional systems, convex optimization, thermonuclear fusion, and data-driven control methodologies.

Naira Hovakimyan received her MS degree in Applied Mathematics from Yerevan State University in Armenia. She got her Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics from the Institute of Applied Mathematics of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. She is currently W. Grafton and Lillian B. Wilkins Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering and the Director of AVIATE Center of UIUC. She has co-authored two books, eleven patents and more than 450 refereed publications. She is the 2011 recipient of AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight Award, the 2015 recipient of SWE Achievement Award, the 2017 recipient of IEEE CSS Award for Technical Excellence in Aerospace Controls, and the 2019 recipient of AIAA Pendray Aerospace Literature Award. In 2014 she was awarded the Humboldt prize for her lifetime achievements. She is Fellow of AIAA and IEEE, and senior member of NAI. She is cofounder and chief scientist of Intelinair. Her work was featured in the New York Times, on Fox TV and CNBC.