Four Aerospace Engineering Faculty Named AIAA Associate Fellows

Brent Barbee
Lecturer

Selected for his “exceptional contributions to small body exploration, planetary defense, and the education and mentorship of the next generation of Aerospace Engineers.”

Brent Barbee currently serves as the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Lead Planetary Defense Applications Scientist and Community Liaison. As an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Barbee teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. His current work includes leading U.S. interagency spacecraft mission design research for planetary defense against hazardous asteroids and comets. His prior work includes serving on the Investigation Team for NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, serving on the Flight Dynamics Team for NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission, and being a lead author of the White House's U.S. National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan. Main-belt asteroid 120208 was renamed "Brentbarbee" in honor of his contributions to asteroid missions and planetary defense.

Liam Healy
Senior Lecturer

Selected for his “fundamental contributions to the field of space situational awareness and the education of the next generation of applied astrodynamicists.”

Liam Healy is a research physicist in the Mathematics and Orbit Dynamics section of the Control Systems Branch, Spacecraft Engineering Division at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C. and an associate editor of the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics. He specializes in astrodynamics and space navigation and guidance, and more broadly in computational and algorithmic applied mathematics with applications to dynamics, celestial mechanics, control and robotics. Healy has worked on problems in cluster flight dynamics, space surveillance, orbital debris, orbit determination, and trajectory planning for collision avoidance.

Michael Otte
Associate Professor

Selected for his “outstanding contributions to mission planning and control of autonomous multi-agent systems composed of heterogeneous robotic swarms, ground vehicles, and aviation assets.”

Michael Otte is the director of UMD’s Motion and Teaming Lab, and he also holds affiliations with Maryland’s Department of Computer Science, the Maryland Robotics Center, the MATRIX Lab, and the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland. He is a Senior member of IEEE, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Robotics Research, and served as a co-chair of the International Workshop on Robot Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR'22) and Program Chair of the International Conference on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS'24). Otte was previously a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Associate in the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, a visiting scholar at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, and a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder in computer science.

Umberto Saetti
Assistant Professor

Selected for his “outstanding contributions to rotorcraft flight dynamics, control, and human-machine interaction, advancing modeling, simulation, and pilot perception augmentation for aerospace systems.”

Umberto Saetti is the director of Maryland’s Extended Reality Flight Simulation and Control Lab where his research and teaching focus on three major areas: flight dynamics and control, handling qualities, state-space modeling of aeromechanics/aeroacoustics, and human-machine interaction. His work involves modeling, simulation, order reduction, and control of the coupled flight dynamics, aeromechanics, and aeroacoustics of vertical lift vehicles. These models are used for immersive XR simulations, advanced control laws, and neuro-adaptive pilot cueing methods to improve flight safety. Saetti previously held appointments at Auburn University, Georgia Tech, and NASA Ames. In addition to this year’s selection as an AIAA Fellow, Saetti is also the recipient of the 2022 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program, 2024 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, and several other honors.