Mehran Mesbahi

Mehran Mesbahi is a Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics and Adjunct Professor in Mathematics and Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Washington. He holds the J. Ray Bowen Professorship for Innovation in Engineering Education. His research focuses on control systems, optimization, and robotics, with applications to aerospace systems such as autonomous vehicles and spacecraft formation flight. He leads the Robotics, Aerospace, and Information Networks (RAIN) Lab and serves as Executive Director of the Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation (JCATI).

Education: PhD (1996), MS (Math & Electrical Engineering), and BS from the University of Southern California. Prior to UW, he worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was on faculty at the University of Minnesota.

Research interests include decision-making under uncertainty, distributed control systems, and policy optimization for nonlinear systems. Recent work addresses multi-agent reinforcement learning, adaptive control for aerospace systems, and data-driven approaches to trajectory optimization.

• Awards: IEEE Fellow, AIAA Fellow, UW Distinguished Teaching Award (2005), NASA Space Act Award (2004)
• Advising: Supervised PhD students such as Aditya Deole (spacecraft guidance) and Shahriar Talebi (policy optimization). Current students include Joseph and Joalda.
• Grants: Active projects in space systems, autonomous robotics, and control theory funded by NASA, NSF, and industry.

Labs/Teams: RAIN Lab develops advanced algorithms for robotic networks and aerospace systems. Collaborates with Blue Origin and NASA on missions involving spacecraft guidance and swarm robotics.