People

People

Principal Investigator

Yu Wang

Yu Wang

Assistant Professor

Yu Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of the University of Florida (UF) and the Group Lead in Autonomous and Connected Vehicles at UF Transportation Institute. He was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University. He received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering and M.S. degrees in Statistics and Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). His research focuses on assured autonomy for cyber-physical and robotic systems.


Ph.D. Students

Zetong Xuan

Zetong Xuan

Ph.D. Student

Zetong Xuan received his Bachelor’s degree in Aircraft Design and Engineering in 2019 from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China, and his Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering in Dec 2021 from the University of Florida. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering under the guidance of Dr. Yu Wang. His research interests include control theory and reinforcement learning.


Mark Yen

Mark Yen

Ph.D. Student

Mark Yen received a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Florida in 2020 and a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Florida in 2021. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering under Dr. Yu Wang. He is a recipient of the DoD SMART Fellowship. His research interests include applications of Reinforcement Learning and Neural Architecture Search to generate Neural Network-based controllers. 


Nathaniel Smith

Nathaniel Smith

Ph.D. Student

Nathaniel Smith received his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and Mathematics from the University of Florida in 2021. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering under Dr. Yu Wang. He is from Jupiter, Florida. His research interests include applications of Game Theory and  Reinforcement Learning to model attacks on Cyber-Physical systems.


Master Students

Kawshik Selvaraj

Kawshik Selvaraj

M.S. Student

Kawshik Selvaraj received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Anna University, India in 2019. He is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering under Dr. Yu Wang. His research interest include computer vision and decision making for autonomous vehicles and robotics.


Undergraduate Students

Alexis R. Sturm

Alexis R. Sturm

B.S. Student, Captain

Alexis Sturm is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Florida. She is in her 4th year and plans to graduate in Spring 2025.


Isabella Camacho

Isabella Camacho

B.S. Student, Vice-Captain

Isabella Camacho is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Florida. Her interests include improving energy efficiency of cars and safety in automotive design.


Nathan H. Impreso

Nathan H. Impreso

B.S. Student, Computer-Aided Design (CAD) Manager

Nathan Impreso is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Florida. His interests include autonomous vehicle design and implementation.


Jason T. Hackett

Jason T. Hackett

B.S. Student, Historian

Jason Hackett is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science with a major in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Florida. He is from Branford, Connecticut. He decided to join the SAL track building team because it combines his interests of CAD, real-world engineering design, and model vehicles.


Alumni

Daeyun (Key) Gi

Daeyun (Key) Gi

M.S.

Daeyun Gi received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Incheon National University, South Korea, in 2020. He graduated with a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering under Dr. Yu Wang on August 11, 2023. He currently works at SK Battery in Commerce, Georgia. His research interests include computer vision like object detection for autonomous vehicles and Vision Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (VSLAM) for mobile robots.

Dissertation: “Conformance Test of Point Cloud Data from ORB-SLAM3


Sippapas (Ken) Sukpholtham

Sippapas (Ken) Sukpholtham

M.S.

Sippapas Sukpholtham received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, in 2019. He graduated with a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering under Dr. Yu Wang on May 5, 2023. His research interests include the cyber-physical system in autonomous vehicles and reinforcement learning.

Dissertation: “The Stealthy-Controllable Attack with a Learning-Based Model in Cyber-Physical Systems