Meet the team

Dr. K. Merve Dogan


Director of the FAST LAB

Dr. K. Merve Dogan is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University since August 2020. Prior to joining the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, she held the Research Assistant position in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Florida between 2015 and 2020, where she received her Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2020. Before joining the University of South Florida, she held a Research/Teaching Assistant position in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Izmir Institute of Technology between 2012 and 2015, where she received her Master of Science degree in 2016. Dr. Dogan is a Co-Director of the Forum on Robotics and Control Engineering (FoRCE), and is a member of AIAA and IEEE, including several technical committees. Besides, she is a recipient of the Recipient for the 2022 Dave Ward Memorial Lecture Award from the Aerospace Control and Guidance Systems Committee (ACGSC), 2021 Excellent Reviewer; AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 2020 Outstanding Thesis and Dissertation Award (USF), recipient of 2019 Student best paper award; Adaptive and Learning Control Systems (IFAC, Winchester, UK), her co-authored paper titled by "Learning control of robot manipulators in task space," is listed in the 2019 Top 20 Most Read Papers; Asian Journal of Control, recipient of 2019 Best session presentation; in AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference (San Diego, California).

Islam A. Aly


Ph.D. Student

Islam is a graduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University since January 2021. He earned his B.Sc degree in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Aerospace Engineering and his M.Sc degree in Mechatronics Engineering from the American University of Sharjah. He has some industry experience in components, flight controls, and nacelles repairs in Emirates Airlines and Lufthansa Technik. His dynamical systems and controls research specializes in mobile robots, robot manipulators, autonomous vehicles, and designing unmanned aerial vehicle. 

Atahan Kurttisi


Ph.D. Student

Atahan is a graduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University since August 2021. He received both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the Department of Control and Automation Engineering, Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul/Turkey in 2018 and 2021, respectively. He studied jerk optimal trajectory generation and adaptive control of a package delivery quadcopter system in his M.Sc. thesis. Together with his academic studies, he worked for Cezeri Artificial Intelligence and Robotics company as a Guidance, Navigation and Control engineer in the Cezeri Flying Car project. His study is mainly built on optimal and adaptive control of the aerial vehicles together with dynamical modeling and system identification. He also focuses on stability analysis and control of the flapping-wing flight.

N. Eren Sarioglu


Ph.D. Student

Eren is a soon to be graduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University starting from May 2022. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechatronics Engineering from Sabanci University/Istanbul in 2020 and he worked in UAV industry nearly 2 years as a control system engineer concentrated on quadcopter systems. He mainly focused on Guidance, Navigation and Control areas of drone vehicles and has experiences on calibration, validation and isolation of onboard sensors.

Thitiphun Vongkunghae


M.Sc. Student

Thitiphun is a graduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University since August 2021 and aims to achieve a PhD in this field. He received his Bachelor of Engineering in Aeronautical Engineering degree from Navamintra Kasatriyadiraj Royal Air Force Academy, Thailand in 2019. He has worked as a teaching assistant at the Navamintra Kasatriyadiraj Royal Air Force Academy and has worked on methodological V-TOL designs for fixed-wing designs as well as fabrication and flight test of the design as a research assistant. 

Blake Rohweder


M.Sc. Student

Blake is a graduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University since August 2021. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach in 2021. He is currently a part of the Men's Tennis team on campus and has been for the last five years. He was born in Midland, Texas, and raised in San Antonio, TX. He is currently working as a Research Assistant, a Graduate Teaching Assistant, and a Chief Engineer for a Vehicle Safe Manufacturing company called Lock'er Down in San Antonio, TX.

Sebastian Comeaux


M.Sc. Student

Sebastian is an undergraduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University since 2017 and plans to graduate in December of 2021. From there he will become a graduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle with a concentration in Dynamics and Control. He was born and raise in Castle Rock, Colorado, and tries to make it back there as often as he can. He is very active in the school as the for Treasurer of both the ERAU Table Tennis Team and the ERAU Trap and Skeet Team. He is currently working as a Undergraduate Research Assistant. 

Andrew Bray


M.Sc. Student

Andrew graduated from University of Alaska Fairbanks with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis is embedded circuits. He returned to school after two years working on power transmission and substation design to peruse a masters in aerospace engineering. Andrew's interests are the design and implementation of unmanned aerial systems and electrification of aircraft.

Kevin R. Puopolo


UG Student

Kevin has been an undergraduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University since 2019 and plans to graduate in Spring of 2023. From there he will go to Undergraduate Pilot Training for the United States Air Force at Vance AFB in Oklahoma. He was born and raised in Grafton, Massachusetts and loves going outdoors to fish and hike. He is currently in the Air Force ROTC program at the university and is currently working as an Undergraduate Research Assistant

Julia G. Sherrill


Alumni UG Student

Julia is an undergraduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University since 2018. She is planning on graduation in the spring of 2022. She was born and raised just outside of DC in Herndon, VA and loves being only five minutes away from the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum. She is the first person in her family to be interested in anything aviation related as well as the first to get her private helicopter pilot license. Julia is extremely excited to be working as an Undergraduate Research Assistant. 

Mafalda L. Soares


Alumni UG Student

Undergraduate student of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University since 2018. Planning on graduation in the spring of 2022. I was born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal and moved to the US to pursue a degree. I am currently part of the women's tennis team on campus as I have been for the last 3 years.

David P. Reynolds


Former UG Student

As a second-year student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, David Reynolds brings with him a strong passion for aviation, aeronautics, and astronautics. He is an instrument-rated pilot, has proficiency in multiple programming languages, and has experience building avionics hardware.