People

Director

Prof. Grace X. Gao

Associate Professor
James and Anna Marie Spilker Faculty Fellow
Stanford University
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Department of Electrical Engineering (by courtesy)
Director, Navigation and Autonomous Vehicles Laboratory (Stanford NAV Lab)
Co-lead, Robotics and Autonomous Systems Area, Stanford SystemX Alliance
Co-director, Stanford Center for AI Safety
​Member, Center for Automotive Research at Stanford

Ph.D. Students

Guillem Casadesus Vila

Lunar positioning, navigation, and timing

• Ph.D. candidate, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
• M.S. Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, 2024
• B.S. Aerospace Engineering, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, 2022 
• B.S. Telecommunications Engineering, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, 2022

Kaila Coimbra

Lunar surface rover positioning

• Ph.D. student, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering with minor in Aerospace Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 2023

Adam Dai

Provably safe trajectory planning under uncertainty

• Ph.D. candidate, Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
• M.S. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, 2021
• B.S. Electrical Engineering with minor in Computer Science, California Institute of Technology, 2019

Keidai Iiyama

Navigation for the Moon

• Ph.D. candidate, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
• M.E. Aeronautics and Astronautics, The University of Tokyo, 2021
• B.E. Aeronautics and Astronautics, The University of Tokyo, 2019 

Daniel Neamati

Digital twins of wildland and urban areas for sustainability and localization

• Ph.D. candidate, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
• M.S. Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, 2024
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering, minor in Planetary Science, California Institute of Technology, 2021

Mira Partha

3D (NeRF/GS) environment mapping and vision-/language-based localization

• Ph.D. candidate, Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
• M.Eng. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020
• S.B. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019

Asta Wu

GNSS-based relative localization for tandem drifting cars

• Ph.D. candidate, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
• M.S. Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, 2022
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering; Minor Computer Science, California Institute of Technology, 2020      

Alan Yang

GNSS code design using AI and machine learning

• Ph.D. candidate, Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
• M.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020
• B.S. Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2018

MS Students

Alexandre Carlhammar

Moon rover navigation using neural and digital elevation maps

• M.S. Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

Arun Chandler

Lunar Positioning, Navigation, and Timing

• M.S. Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
• B.S. Physics, Clemson University, 2024

Hayes Edwards

Autocalibration of Camera Extrinsics for Airplanes

• M.S. Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University 
• B.S. Aeronautical Engineering, United States Air Force Academy, 2024

Natasha Evans

Lunar Positioning, Navigation, and Timing

• M.S. Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University 
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering, UC Davis 2023
• B.S. Aerospace Science and Engineering, UC Davis 2023

Vishal Jain

Scene graphs for visual localization with Neural City Maps

• M.S. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
• B.Tech. Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay, 2020

Sukeerth Ramkumar

Multi-agent uncertainty planning

• M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology

Cole Robins

Associating vehicle crash typologies with Neural City Maps using visual language models

• M.S. Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
• B.S. Engineering Physics, Stanford University
• B.S. Mathematics, Stanford University

Axel Wennström

Scene graphs for visual localization with Neural City Maps

• M.S. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Linköping/Stanford University
• B.S. Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, Linköping University, 2024

Brian Wu

Perception for Lunar surface autonomy

• M.S. Computer Science, Stanford University
• B.S. Computer Science, Stanford University, 2024

Undergraduate Students

Thomas Deng

3D reconstruction and path planning

• B.S. Candidate, Computer Science, Stanford University

Jack Goler

Environment mapping using Neural Radiance Fields and Gaussian Splatting

• B.S. Candidate, Applied Mathematics, Physics, Stanford University

Angel Gunaman

Lunar surface mapping

• B.S. Candidate, Mechanical Engineering, Minor in Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University

Jerry Wang

Environment mapping using Neural Radiance Fields and Gaussian Splatting

• B.S. Candidate, Engineering Physics, Stanford University

Administrative Staff

David Luna       

• Everyone's favorite go-to person to keep the lab running

Non-Human Members

Navi-chu

• A cheerful expert who enjoys joining NAV Lab’s thrilling activities (including rollercoaster rides) and spreading smiles.