Faculty

Prof. Holzinger

Marcus Holzinger

Associate Professor • H. Joseph Smead Faculty Fellow
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
See Prof. Holzinger's biography .

Postdoc

Conor Benson

Conor Benson

Postdoctoral Researcher
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Conor is from Wake Forest, North Carolina. He received his BS in Aerospace Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2015 and his PhD in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2021. His research interests include natural and artificial small body rotational dynamics, optical and radar-based spin state estimation, and multi-phenomenology approaches to space object characterization. Outside of research he enjoys music, biking, and road trips.
Casey Heidrich

Casey Heidrich

Professional Research Associate • GAANN Fellow
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Casey is from Sacramento, CA. Casey earned his B.S. from University of California Davis in 2013, M.S. in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2015, and Ph.D. from University of Colorado Boulder in 2021. Casey's research involves optimal control theory and estimation as applied to Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and space object pattern of life characterization. In his free time, Casey enjoys rock climbing, hiking, and playing music.
Mark Moretto

Mark Moretto

Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Mark is from Briarcliff Manor, New York. He earned a BS in Aerospace Engineering and a BS in Astronomy from the University of Maryland in 2017. He completed his graduate studies at the University of Colorado Boulder where he earned his MS and PhD in Aerospace Engineering Sciences in 2019 and 2022 respectively. Mark's research interests include orbital mechanics, estimation, and planetary science. Currently he is working on low signal-to-noise...

Graduate Student

Ellery Bohrnmann

Ellery Bohrmann

Working in Operations at NASA Johnson Space Center • Graduate Research Assistant (deferred)
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Kevin Bonnet

Kevin Bonnet

Ph.D. Student • Graduate Research Assistant
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Kevin is from Aurillac, France. He graduated from Caltech in 2015 with a Master of Science in Space Engineering and from ISAE-Supaero (Toulouse, France) in 2016 with a Diplome d'Ingenieur (Master of Science) in Aerospace Engineering. Kevin's research focuses on entry, descent and landing trajectory and atmosphere reconstruction using unscented Gaussian mixtures and vacuous priors, and on information theoretic approaches to design control schemes to improve observability and uncertainty of...
Queenique Dinh

Queenique Dinh

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2022)
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Queenique graduated with her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in astronautical engineering from the University of Southern California. Her research interests lie in the applications of optimization and optimal control methods to Space Domain Awareness in the cislunar region. In her free time, she enjoys ballroom and social dancing.
Eva Evans

Evangelina Evans

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2022)
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Eva is from Kailua, Hawaii. She completed her undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering with honors at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include astrodynamics, trajectory optimization, and mission design. In her free time, she enjoys scuba diving, traveling, hiking, and is learning how to fly fish.
Samuel Fedeler

Samuel Fedeler

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2018) • Draper Fellow • NSF Fellow
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Sam studied Physics and Computer science as an undergraduate student at North Carolina State University. Sam's research focuses on the development of novel autonomous multi-object tracking algorithms for ground-based telescopes. Other than his research, Sam enjoys the outdoors, whether he's hiking, skiing, playing soccer, or throwing a frisbee.
Michael Klonowski

Michael Klonowski

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2021) • Graduate Research Assistant
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Michael is from Rice Lake, Wisconsin and studied Mathematics and Physics as an undergraduate at St. John's University in Minnesota. His research interests include reachability theory, optimal control, and multi-objective design optimization (as well as anything else space related). He also enjoys rock climbing, skiing, playing the guitar, and snuggling with his roommate's dog, Duke.
Garrick Lau

Garrick Lau

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2020) • Graduate Research Assistant
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Garrick is from New Jersey and got his bachelor’s and master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University. He has been working at Northrop Grumman in its Control Systems Engineering group. His research interests include optimization of navigation problems, reachability, and admissible regions. In his spare time, he enjoys the outdoors, rock climbing, and playing and listening to music.
Katie Melbourne

Katie Melbourne

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2021)
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Katie is a part-time PhD student on the ASN track at CU and a full-time Systems Engineer at Ball Aerospace. She graduated with a B.S. in Astrophysics from Yale University. At work, Katie is a wavefront sensing scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, but her academic interests are Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and Conjunction Assessment and Risk Analysis (CARA) in LEO. She hopes to pursue a career in space...
Patrick Miga

Patrick Miga

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2020) • Graduate Research Assistant • Matthew Isakowitz Fellow • Dean's Graduate Award Fellowship
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Patrick is from Lisle, Illinois and received a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech. He is interested in creating systems architectures beyond Earth orbit at the intersection of astrodynamics and decision making under uncertainty, and he is involved in research with cislunar architectures. In his spare time, Patrick likes to lift weights, run, hike, golf, snowboard, visit Colorado's many breweries, and play the drums.
Anna Montgomery

Anna Montgomery

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2019) • NSF Fellow • Draper Fellow • Dean's Graduate Award Fellowship
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Anna is from Tampa, FL and graduated from the University of Florida in May 2019 with dual B.S. degrees in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Her current research focus involves utilizing numerical methods to solve optimal control problems as they relate to astrodynamics. In her free time, Anna enjoys cooking, exploring local breweries and coffee shops, and various outdoor activities such as running, biking, and backpacking.
Karina Rivera

Karina Rivera

Ph.D. Student
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Karina's interests include research on guidance, navigation, and control algorithms for spacecraft proximity operations, satellite swarms, intelligent algorithms for autonomous missions. In addition, in her free time, she enjoy playing the violin and doing aerial arts.
Ben Schmactenberger

Benjamin Schmachtenberger

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2022)
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Ben is originally from Denver, CO and currently lives in Baltimore, MD where he works at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in the Space Control Applications group. He studied math and physics as an undergrad at Creighton University, as well as applied mathematics during his time at RPI in Troy NY. In his spare time, he enjoys rock climbing, biking, camping and exploring the many great breweries and restaurants...
Liam Smith

Liam Smith

Ph.D. Student (From Fall 2021)
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Liam is from San Clemente, CA and completed a B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Astronomy at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He then spent 5 years at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center working on SSA projects and currently is a flight dynamics engineer at Amazon’s Project Kuiper. His research interests are in spaceflight dynamics, space situational awareness, and space safety. Outside of research, Liam enjoys...
Anthony Zara

Anthony Zara

Master's Student (From Fall 2020) • Graduate Research Assistant
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Anthony was born and raised in St. Louis and went to Mizzou for an undergraduate degree in Mechanical and Aerospace engineering. He used to work in the HVAC industry, but after feeling the need for a career change, entered the Masters program at CU Boulder to study Astrodynamics and Satellite Navigation. He is currently pursuing research in Space Domain Awareness, using an optimal control based estimator to train machine learning...

Graduated Ph.D.

Daniel Aguilar-Marsillach

Daniel Aguilar-Marsillach

Ph.D. Student • Graduate Research Assistant (Graduated Fall 2021)
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Daniel Aguilar Marsillach is a graduate research assistant specializing in decision theory and tasking of electro-optical systems within the SSA field. His previous experience includes direct and indirect optimal control techniques along with real-time closed-loop control of electro-optical systems using image processing feedback. Daniel currently focuses on sensor tasking using evidential reasoning and estimation techniques to resolve hypotheses of interest for a set of resident space objects.
Julian Brew

Julian Brew

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory • NSTRF Fellow
School of Aerospace Engineering • Georgia Tech
Julian is from Stone Mountain, Georgia. His Dissertation is: Using Sample-Based Continuation Techniques to Efficiently Compute Subspace Reachable Sets and Pareto Surfaces
Shahzad Virani

Shahzad (Shez) Virani

Ph.D. Student (Graduated Summer 2022) • NDSEG Fellow • MSGS (West)
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Shez comes from the Atlanta metro area, and focuses his time on wide field-of-view electro-optical sensor control, data reduction, and detecting / tracking space objects.
Samuel Wishnek

Samuel Wishnek

Ph.D. Student (Graduated Fall 2021)
Ann & H. J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Sam graduated with high distinction from UC Berkeley with majors in physics and astrophysics. He spent two summers interning at Schaeffler and the following three at Northrop Grumman Synoptics. At Synoptics he built optical systems for laser crystal metrology. Sam's research interests include the application of optical systems to spacecraft tracking, guidance, navigation, and control.

Graduated M.S.

Matthew Harwood

Matthew Harwood

M.S. Student (2nd year)
School of Aerospace Engineering
Matthew is from Jacksonville, FL, and completed a dual B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at University of Florida. During his time away from studies and work, he enjoys distance running, cycling, climbing, backpacking, and the great outdoors. He also likes local eats, alternative rock music, and star gazing
Andrey Pak

Andrey Pak

Ph.D. Student (4th year)
School of Aerospace Engineering (Robotics)
Andrey is a doctorate student in Robotics (Aerospace Engineering). After obtaining his Masters degree in Computer Vision and Robotics, he worked in Chile under the AFOSR grant on Random Finite Sets for space object tracking. His research interests include multi-target tracking for Space Situational Awareness. Andrey is an amateur photographer and while studying at Tech, he is also planning to get his private pilot certificate.
Jacob Vendl

Jacob Vendl

Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Jake now works at Ball Aerospace. M.S. Thesis topic: Cislunar Periodic Orbit Analysis for Space Object Detection Capability (defended March 30, 2020)