Huy Trong Tran

Huy Trong Tran is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Department of Aerospace Engineering. He holds academic positions including a concurrent role at the Applied Research Institute (0%) and a full-time (100%) position at UIUC. His research focuses on autonomy, reinforcement learning, robotics, and resilience engineering in critical infrastructure systems.

Education: Ph.D. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech (2015/2014), M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison (2010), B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University (2008, Magna Cum Laude).

Research Interests: Tran's work spans autonomy in robotics, multi-agent systems, and resilience analysis of transportation and power networks. He develops AI-driven solutions for decision-making under uncertainty, with applications in aviation, field robotics, and infrastructure resilience. His methods include reinforcement learning, complex network frameworks, and predictive modeling using graph neural networks.

Teaching: He has taught courses such as AE 498 CSE/CSO (Computational Systems Engineering), AE 443/442 (Aerospace Systems Design), and AE 370 (Aerospace Numerical Methods). His instruction emphasizes computational methods and systems engineering principles.

Awards: Received the Best Paper Award (Theoretical Track) at the 2016 International Symposium on Resilient Control Systems for work on resilient systems frameworks.

Labs/Teams: Active in research groups focused on autonomous systems, resilience engineering, and AI-driven decision-making. Collaborates with institutions like MITRE Corporation and the Air Force Institute of Technology.