Kyle J. DeMars
Postdoctoral Researchers
Maaninee Gupta, Ph.D.
Maaninee Gupta received her PhD in Astrodynamics and Space Applications from Purdue University in 2024, advised by Prof. Kathleen Howell. Her doctoral research focused on multi-body dynamics and trajectory design for applications towards cislunar space surveillance leveraging resonant orbits. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics, also from Purdue, in 2018 and 2020 respectively.
Students
Kyle Craft
Kyle Craft is a fourth-year Ph.D. student and NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) Fellow. His research is primarily focused on information-theoretic approaches to robust, nonlinear estimation. He received a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2020.
Matthew Elmer
Matthew Elmer is a second-year M.S. student working on simulation and visualization of uncertain systems. His other areas of interest include manned spaceflight, Mars, and the intersection of aerospace engineering and computer science. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Computer Science from Texas A&M University. Matthew is a Craig and Galen Brown Foundation Scholarship alumnus.
William Fife
William Fife is a PhD student working on uncertainty-aware guidance methods and chance-constrained optimization. He received a bachelors of science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Evan Hefflin
Evan Hefflin is a third-year PhD student researching spacecraft multitarget tracking and maneuver detection and estimation. He received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2022.
Cameron Helmuth
Cameron Helmuth is a PhD student researching recursive Bayesian approaches for estimation of constrained states. Specifically he is interested in states that adhere to inequality constraints and correlated Euclidean and attitude states. Cameron holds a MS in Aerospace Engineering from Missouri University of Science & Technology and BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri.
Amanda Macha
Amanda Macha is a first-year M.S. student whose interests include autonomous space flight and Moon and Mars exploration. She received her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2024.
Alberto Zamora-Mendieta
Alberto Zamora is a PhD candidate working on algorithms for autonomous threat detection/classification and active sensing for navigation and control in the cislunar regime. He received B.S. in Mechatronics Engineering from the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, and his MEng. in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University.
Former Students
James Brouk, Ph.D.
James Brouk received his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2024 where he worked with Dr. Kyle DeMars. His doctoral research primarily focused on robust and precise capabilities for feature-based, terrain relative navigation. By leveraging new concepts for nonlinear filtering that intrinsically address non-standard error sources in a model-based manner, a novel approach to filtering that can implicitly address many critical error sources and retain precise estimation performance was introduced. James received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
Gunner Fritsch, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Robust Approaches to Nonlinear Filtering with Applications to Navigation
Gunner Fritsch received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University in 2016, his Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2019, and his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2022. Dr. Fritsch’s research interests span a range of topics, including nonlinear estimation, space object tracking, and spacecraft navigation. Currently, Dr. Fritsch serves as an Aerospace Engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), where he works on a diverse range of estimation-related projects. These include the interplanetary Dragonfly mission, the development of advanced cislunar navigation systems, and practical applications of nonlinear filtering to space situational awareness.
Kyle McGee
Thesis: State and Uncertainty Propagation using Generalized Equinoctial Orbital Elements
Kyle McGee completed his bachelors degree and his masters degree, both in Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M, in 2021 and 2023, respectively. His research focused on generalized orbital element representations which embed perturbed behavior in the elements to ease the computational load of high-accuracy propagation. He currently works for CUBRC Inc. in Rome, NY as a Space Domain Awareness Engineer.