People

Faculty

Kyle DeMars is an associate professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. His research focuses on the estimation of uncertain systems, with specific emphasis on topics in spacecraft navigation and space domain awareness, including non-restrictive uncertainty representations, directional statistics, information theory, nonlinear uncertainty propagation, probabilistic inference, sensor resource utilization, and multitarget tracking.

Postdoctoral Researchers

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.

Graduate Students

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Former Members

Postdoctoral Researchers

James Brouk, PhD

Doctoral Students

Kyle Craft, PhD (2025)

Information-Theoretic Approaches to Nonlinear Filtering and Robust Bayesian Inference

James Brouk, PhD (2024)

Crater Navigation and Map-Based Localization with Probabilistic Extent Models and Multi-Feature Assignments

Gunner Fritsch, PhD (2022)

Robust Approaches to Nonlinear Filtering with Applications to Navigation [Access dissertation]

Kari Ward, PhD (2021)

Information-Based Methods and Models for Particle Flow Filtering [Access dissertation]

Matthew Gualdoni, PhD (2020)

Applications of Information Theory in Filtering and Sensor Management [Access dissertation]

Christine Schmid, PhD (2020)

Generalization of Polynomial Chaos for Estimation of Angular Random Variables [Access dissertation]

James McCabe, PhD (2018)

Multitarget Tracking and Terrain-Aided Navigation using Square-Root Consider Filters [Access dissertation]

Jacob Darling, PhD (2016)

Bayesian Inference for Dynamic Pose Estimation using Directional Statistics [Access dissertation]

Masters Students

Matthew Elmer, MS (2025)

Kyle McGee, MS (2023)

State and Uncertainty Propagation using Generalized Equinoctial Orbital Elements [Access thesis]

James Brouk, MS (2019)

Propagation of Uncertainty Through Coning, Sculling, and Scrolling Corrections for Inertial Navigation [Access thesis]

Bruce Morrison, MS (2019)

Effects of Uncertainty Refinement on Satellite Collision Probability [Access thesis]

Kenneth Kratzer, MS (2018)

Effects of Terrain-Based Altimetry on Navigation Performance [Access thesis]

Casey Smith, MS (2017)

Development and Implementation of Star Tracker Based Attitude Estimation [Access thesis]

Samuel Haberberger, MS (2016)

An IMU-Based Spacecraft Navigation Architecture using a Robust Multi-Sensor Fault Detection Scheme [Access thesis]

Keith LeGrand, MS (2015)

Space-Based Relative Multitarget Tracking [Access thesis]