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
Member, Stanford Robotics Center

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 positioning, navigation, and timing

• Ph.D. candidate, 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

Lyla Dong

Sustainable wildfire retardants and decision-making for safer prescribed burns (Co-advised with Eric A. Appel)

• Ph.D. candidate, Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University
• M.S. Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, 2024
• B.S. Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 2022

Sitan Huang

Lunar Positioning, Navigation, and Timing

• Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
• B.E. Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, 2025 

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 

Matthias Kura

Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) on the Moon and Mars

• M.S. Aerospace, Technical University of Munich, 2025
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Munich, 2023

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

Elena Wittemyer

Lunar surface navigation and mapping

• B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Yale University, 2025

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      

MS Students

Henry Demarest

Lunar surface navigation, mapping, and control

• B.S. Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, Yale University, 2025

Grace Hendricks 

Autocalibration of Camera Extrinsics for Airplanes

• M.S. Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
• B.S. Aeronautical Engineering, United States Air Force Academy, 2025

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

Ashlynn Sweet

Aircraft navigation and autonomy

• M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering, United States Air Force Academy, 2025

Evan Twarog

Environmental sensor networks for sustainability and resilience

• M.S. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
• B.S. Electrical Engineering, US Coast Guard Academy, 2019

Undergraduate Students

Dev Jayram

3D reconstruction methods for generating Bird's Eye View maps from street-level imagery

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

Rudraksh Mohapatra

3D Reconstruction for Sustainability

• B.S. Candidate, Electrical Engineering, Minor in Mathematics, Stanford University

Jenny Zhang

Lunar surface rover navigation

• B.S. Candidate, Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology

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.