Kevin Manohar's Ph.D. General Exam
Kevin Manohar's General Exam
Observability and Estimation of Turbulent Flows: From Linear Projections to Riemannian Manifolds, Committee
Owen Williams (Chair), Bob Breidenthal (AA), Antonino Ferrante (AA), Krithika Manohar (ME), Juan Carlos del Alamo (GSR, ME)
Abstract
This three-part talk presents a data-driven framework for reconstructing turbulent flow fields from sparse, indirect, multi-sensor, and multi-rate measurements. The first part reveals hidden physics in aliased experimental data using sparse estimation. Low-rate, spatially resolved Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) of turbulent separated flow over a three-dimensional bump geometry—designed to emulate high-lift wing separation—is combined with high-repetition-rate wall-pressure measurements from sparsely distributed sensors. A deep learning model temporally upsamples the PIV snapshots and reconstructs latent modal dynamics. The reconstruction reveals a previously undocumented phenomenon: fast, spatially symmetric wake motions are modulated by a…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Aerospace and Engineering Research Building (AER). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/95963523020?pwd=C9YQjTeqCf3a3GoXqxTp6pdB9CTDSY.1. Campus room: 130. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics.
Friday, May 15, 2026, 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM.
Kazuki Mizuta's Ph.D. General Exam
Kazuki Mizuta's General Exam
Toward Safe Robot Autonomy with Generative Models
Committee
Karen Leung (Chair), Sam Burden, Amir Taghvaei, Maya Cakmak, Abhishek Gupta
Abstract
Safe robot autonomy remains a central challenge in robotics because real-world deployment requires both adaptability and reliability in environments that are dynamic, uncertain, and only partially observable. Classical control-theoretic methods provide principled safety guarantees, but they often rely on explicit state representations, simplified geometry, and hand-designed safe sets. These assumptions are difficult to satisfy in dynamic, unstructured environments, where safety-relevant information may be distributed across high-dimensional sensory observations, involve semantic context, or depend on uncertain and evolving interactions with other agents. In contrast, modern generative robot policies can process rich sensory observations and represent multimodal future behavior, but they do not by themselves encode safety constraints or…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Interdisciplinary Engineering Building (IEB). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/99815426611. Campus room: 315. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics.
Monday, May 18, 2026, 9:30 AM – 11:30 AM.
A&A Distinguished Speaker Seminar with UCSB's Bassam Bamieh
A&A Distinguished Speaker Seminar with UCSB's Bassam Bamieh
Fragility in Large-scale Dynamics: From Shear-flow transition to Anderson Localization to Networked Dynamical Systems
Reception following! Abstract
Some mathematical models of physical phenomena can exhibit radically different behavior when modified slightly to account for additional physical mechanisms. This can be understood as fragility of the mathematical model to small "perturbations" in the dynamical description. These phenomena appear to be more ubiquitous than is generally believed. Hydrodynamic stability of wall-bounded shear flows is one striking example where flow fluctuations are highly susceptible to even small irregularities. The well-known phenomenon of Anderson localization is another one where small amounts of material disorder can radically alter the nature of dynamical modes. Recent work has shown that such localization phenomena can also occur without the presence of medium disorder, but rather due to complex geometry such as in…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Student Union Building (HUB). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/95344048438. Campus room: 334. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Monday, May 18, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Memorial Day Holiday
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics.
Monday, May 25, 2026.
A&A's 🦈 SHARC Attack: SHowcase of Aerospace Research & Capstones
Join us for our annual celebration of our research and capstones! Graduate lightning pitches , Graduate and undergraduate poster sessions , Capstone hardware on display , Capstone Film Fest, <scribe-shadow data-crx="okfkdaglfjjjfefdcppliegebpoegaii" id="crxjs-ext" style="position: fixed; width: 0px; height: 0px; top: 0px; left: 0px; z-index: 2147483647; overflow: visible; visibility: visible;"></scribe-shadow>.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Student Union Building (HUB). Campus room: Lyceum. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Exhibits.
Tuesday, May 26, 2026, 4:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
A&A Faculty Meeting
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Guggenheim Hall (GUG). Campus room: 211D. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Meetings.
Thursday, June 4, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM.
Spring Quarter Exams
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics.
Saturday, June 6, 2026 – Friday, June 12, 2026.
A&A Graduation
See the latest info on our A&A Graduation page.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Ceremonies.
Tuesday, June 9, 2026.
Samet Uzun's Ph.D. Defense
Samet Uzun's Ph.D. Dissertation Defense
Modeling and High-Performance Algorithms for Mission-Constrained Trajectory Optimization, Committee
Behcet Acikmese (Chair), Mehran Mesbahi, Maryam Fazel, Aleksandr Aravkin, Eli Livne
Abstract
This dissertation develops modeling frameworks and high-performance algorithms for autonomous guidance. It studies how rich mission requirements can be represented in a mathematically precise and optimization-compatible way, and how the resulting nonconvex trajectory-generation problems can be solved reliably and efficiently. In particular, it develops smooth and exact models for mission-level specifications, with an emphasis on continuous-time signal temporal logic, and introduces prox-convex, a structure-preserving sequential convex programming algorithm for the resulting composite optimization problems. These modeling and algorithmic ingredients are integrated in a range of trajectory-optimization applications, including continuous-time signal temporal logic examples,…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Guggenheim Hall (GUG). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/92893094936. Campus room: 211D. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics.
Friday, June 12, 2026, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
UW Commencement
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics.
Saturday, June 13, 2026.
Juneteenth Holiday
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics.
Friday, June 19, 2026.
Independence Day Holiday
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: aafrontdesk@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics.
Saturday, July 4, 2026.