Advising

Selecting Your Advisor

Advisors do more than approve registration and add/drop forms. Your advisor should be someone you trust and, as the term implies, whom you can approach for advice, not only with academic issues, but also broader issues such as summer internships, job, and grad school applications, and personal matters.

In June, the AeroAstro Undergraduate Office sends information to entering sophomores to help them select an advisor. Students browse through the advisor profiles, reviewing the professors’ research areas, teaching interests, and other information. Assignments for incoming sophomores are announced in mid-August. Students whose advisor is on leave from MIT may be reassigned.

Course 16 Advisor Selection form

Submit by Monday, July 17, 2023

For more information about advising, contact academic programs administrator Marie Stuppard.

Undergraduate Advisors (2023-2024)

Hamsa Balakrishnan

William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics

Research Interests:
Air traffic management, controls optimization; networked systems transportation

Steven R.H. Barrett

Associate Department Head

Research Interests:
Climate and air quality impacts of aviation; aircraft propulsion and emissions; electric aircraft propulsion; sustainable aviation fuels; impacts of aircraft noise; air pollution impacts of ground transportation; atmospheric modeling

Kerri Cahoy

Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Areas: Earth & Space Sciences; Autonomous Systems & Decision-Making

Zachary Cordero

Boeing Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
additive manufacturing; in-space manufacturing; propulsion materials; thermal protection materials

Edward F. Crawley

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Ford Professor of Engineering

Research Interests:
Architecture of complex systems, space systems design

David L. Darmofal

Jerome C. Hunsaker Professor

Research Areas: Computational Science & Engineering; Vehicle Design & Engineering

Mark Drela

Terry J. Kohler Professor

Research Interests:
Aerodynamics, computational fluid dynamics, design methodology, low-order modeling of aeromechanical systems

Chuchu Fan

Wilson Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Formal methods, control, and machine learning for the design and analysis of safe autonomous systems, cyber-physical systems, and robotic systems

Edward M. Greitzer

H.N. Slater Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Gas turbine engines, propulsion system-airframe integration, turbomachinery, internal flow and fluid machinery, propulsion, active control of aeromechanical systems, industry-university collaboration

Carmen Guerra-Garcia

Atlantic Richfield Career Development Professor in Energy Studies

Research Interests:
Plasma physics and aerospace applications, multiphysics modeling and experimentation, propulsion, combustion, lightning strike protection

Steven R. Hall

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Automatic control, control of helicopter rotors, acoustic control

R. John Hansman

T. Wilson (1953) Professor in Aeronautics

Research Area: Transportation & Exploration

Wesley L. Harris

C.S. Draper Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Fluid dynamics: unsteady aerodynamics, aeroacoustics; rotorcraft technology; economic incentives: defense systems acquisition, lean financial management methods; sustainment of capital assets; sickle cell pathology: onset dynamics of crisis.

Daniel E. Hastings

Aeronautics and Astronautics Department Head

Research Interests:
Synergetic interactions between space systems and the space environment, space propulsion, space policy, space systems, spacecraft manufacturing processes, space system architecting

Jeffrey A. Hoffman

Professor of the Practice

Research Interests:
Human space flight operations, space flight technology, human-machine interactions, extravehicular activity, conducting laboratory research in space

Jonathan P. How

R.C. Maclaurin Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Navigation and control; design and implementation of distributed robust planning algorithms to coordinate multiple autonomous vehicles in dynamic uncertain environments; adaptive flight control to enable autonomous agile flight and aerobatics; experimental and theoretical robust control

Sertac Karaman

Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Robotics, embedded systems, autonomous vehicles, robotic networks, information theory, integrated circuits

Nancy Leveson

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
System safety, organizational safety and safety culture, software engineering, safety of software controlled systems, system engineering, system safety engineering, human computer interaction

Richard Linares

Charles Stark Draper Assistant Professor

Research Interests:
Astrodynamics, space situational awareness, satellite guidance and navigation, estimation and controls, optimal control, reinforcement learning

Adrián Lozano-Durán

Draper Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Fluid dynamics theory and modeling by artificial intelligence, numerical simulations, turbulent flows

Youssef M. Marzouk

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Computational science and engineering, computational statistics. Uncertainty quantification, inverse problems, data assimilation. Energy and geophysics applications.

David Mindell

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Areas: Human-System Collaboration; Autonomous Systems & Decision-Making; Transportation & Exploration

Eytan H. Modiano

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Data communication, satellite and hybrid networks, high-speed networks

Jaime Peraire

H.N. Slater Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Numerical simulation, Computational mechanics and aerodynamics, Finite Elements

Lonnie Petersen

Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Space Physiology, Sports Medicine & Exercise Physiology, Device Development Medical Devices, COVID-19 Related Ventilator Research

Raul Radovitzky

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Computational Solid Mechanics and Fluid, Structure Interaction, Mechanics of Materials, Multiscale Modeling Simulation, High-Performance Massively Parallel Computing

Zoltán S. Spakovszky

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Propulsion and energy conversion, internal flows in fluid machinery, compressor aerodynamics and stability, micro-fluidics and rotordynamics, aero-acoustics, aircraft design for environment

Qiqi Wang

Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Engineering design of chaotic dynamical systems, unsteady aerodynamics and turbulence, numerical methods for exascale computation, design optimization of uncertainty.

Brian L. Wardle

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Nano-engineered composites, composite and layered materials; hybrid nanocomposite systems; MEMS power devices and energy harvesting; structural health monitoring systems; active materials and devices; finite-element modeling; structural response and testing; buckling mechanics

Brian C. Williams

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Principles of autonomy and decision making, cognitive robotics, artificial intelligence, operations research, robot coordination, energy management

Moe Z. Win

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:
Wireless communications, optical communications, space communications systems