Latest News
- Nov 2026 — We are glad to share that our collaborative work with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto on causal aviation safety analysis, A Hybrid Framework for Explainable Aviation Risk: Causal Chain Extraction from Safety Reports with Physics-Based Failure Quantification and Interventional Analysis (arXiv), is now online, with the code, extracted chains, and learned networks archived on Zenodo. The paper extracts ordered causal chains from 56,202 American accident reports with a local large language model, aggregates them into a causation knowledge graph, and couples that graph with physics-based models that quantify how likely a failure is at a given operating point.
- Oct 2026 — Attended the annual meeting of the Crane Safety Research Center, held at UT Austin, and presented my work on a data-physics hybrid model for crane safety causal analysis, with a tipover case study (slides).
- Sep 2026 — I am glad to share that our first work towards TRACON automation, Trajectory-Based Optimization for Air Traffic Control in the Terminal Maneuvering Area (arXiv), has been accepted for publication in Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies.
- Sep 2026 — The three stage program toward TRACON arrival automation is complete, with all three manuscripts now on arXiv. Trajectory-Based Optimization for Air Traffic Control in the Terminal Maneuvering Area (arXiv) sets up the lateral formulation of arrival trajectory design, turning radar vectoring into computable path extensions and speed profiles, and is now accepted at Transportation Research Part C. Optimal TRACON Descent Procedures under Wind Uncertainty and Fuel Savings Factors (arXiv) goes down to the aircraft configuration level, with six degree of freedom simulations of the airframe coupled to its flight management system, and selects the flap deployment speeds and glideslope capture distance that minimize expected fuel under wind uncertainty subject to a stabilized approach guarantee; it is under review at the AIAA Journal of Aircraft. Trajectory-Based Co-Optimization of Arrival Scheduling and Descent Path Design in the Terminal Maneuvering Area (arXiv) closes the loop by co-optimizing the lateral and vertical procedures in a single scheduler, evaluated on Atlanta arrival scenarios against current published procedures; it is under review at Aerospace Science and Technology.
- Aug 2026 — NASA ACERO wildfire air traffic management: a technical review of firefighting UAVs for wildland fire — platforms and missions, flight dynamics and control models, and the coupling of fire-propagation models to UAV planning — and a companion review of optimization formulations for the firefighting-UAV problem — constraints, cost functions, and tractability across the strategic, tactical, and trajectory layers.
- Jun 2026 — Data-Driven Runway and Taxiway Exits Prediction of Landing Aircraft: A Case Study at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport published in the Journal of Air Transport Management.
- May 2026 — Modeling the Impact of Communication and Human Uncertainties on Runway Capacity in Terminal Airspace published in the Journal of Air Transport Management.
- Mar 2026 — The Reliability of Remotely Piloted Aircraft System Performance under Aeronautical Communication Uncertainties published in Reliability Engineering & System Safety.
- Jan 2026 — From Voice to Safety: Language AI Powered Pilot-ATC Communication Understanding for Airport Surface Movement Collision Risk Assessment published in Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies.
- Oct 2025 — Gave an invited talk in the Aviation Applications Section at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta.
- Mar 2025 — Won 2nd place in the FAA Machine Learning / AI Data Challenge for Aviation Safety at the final event hosted by MITRE in McLean, VA.
- Jul 2024 — Returned to academia and joined UT Austin as a postdoctoral research fellow, working with Prof. John-Paul Clarke on the NASA ULI project on scalable advanced air mobility.
- Jun 2023 — Joined Thales Group in San Jose, California, as a Machine Learning Engineer, working on cyber, digital, software, and LLM security.
- May 2023 — Graduated with a Ph.D. from Arizona State University after five years on the NASA ULI project on aviation big data, and received the Outstanding Graduate Research Award from ASU Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering.