Author: Noah Cowan

Congratulations to Dr. Michael Wilkinson, Dr. Di Cao, and Dr. Yu Yang, who all defended their dissertations within the span of about a month! Dr. Wilkinson defended his on December 11, 2024, Dr. Cao defended on January 16, 2025, and just a week later Dr. Yang defended on January 21, 2025. Three amazing students who all showed great grit and determination through the challenges of the pandemic, ultimately producing outstanding dissertation work that will surely stand the test of time!

Krystal was honored at the Spring 2024 Convocation Awards as a recipient of this year’s William N. Sharpe, Jr. Award for Student Involvement. Bill Sharpe founded our department and was a beloved senior colleague of mine when I arrived, so it is wonderful to see our undergraduate researcher receive this honor. Congrats Krystal!

The LIMBS laboratory is pleased to announce the successful PhD Dissertation Defense of Dr. Shahin Lashkari. His thesis “Place Cells to Path Planning: A Neuro-inspired Approach Toward 3D Trajectory Prediction in Robotics” broke new ground on understanding how the brain represents spatial information during challenging locomotor behaviors. Congrats!

Mr. Yu Yang, PhD student in the LIMBS laboratory, has received multiple TA awards, including the Whiting School of Engineering Teaching Assistant Award and the Creel Family Teaching Award in Mechanical Engineering, the latter of which puts him in the company of multiple LIMBS lab members (Di Cao, Brian Woronowicz, and Shahin Lashkari). Congrats, Yu!