Rate My Professor Mehran Mesbahi

Mehran Mesbahi is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and J. Ray Bowen Professor for Innovation in Engineering Education at the University of Washington, holding adjunct appointments in the departments of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received his B.S. in Engineering summa cum laude from California State University in 1989, M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1991, M.S. in Mathematics in 1995, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1996, all from the University of Southern California. Mesbahi began his career as a Member of the Technical Staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, from 1996 to 2000, contributing to NASA missions such as the Cassini Program and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, for which he received the Cassini Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem Award in 1997 and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Award in 2000. He served as Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities from 2000 to 2002. Joining the University of Washington in 2002, he advanced from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor in 2005 and full Professor in 2010. His accolades include the NSF CAREER Award in 2001, NASA Space Act Award in 2004, University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award in 2005, multiple Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor of the Year awards from 2004 to 2010, UW College of Engineering Innovator Award in 2008, IEEE Fellowship, AIAA Fellowship, membership in the Washington State Academy of Sciences, and election to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Control Systems Society. Mesbahi authored the influential book Graph Theoretic Methods in Multiagent Networks with Magnus Egerstedt (Princeton University Press, 2010) and has published seminal papers such as Graph theoretic analysis and synthesis of relative sensing networks (IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2011), Controllability of multi-agent systems from a graph theoretic perspective (SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, 2009), and recent works on policy optimization and data-driven control systems.

His research focuses on decision-making, control, optimization, networks, and learning, applied to autonomous aerospace and robotic systems including multiagent robotics, spacecraft formation flying and constellations, planetary and lunar landings, distributed estimation and filtering, network control, synchronization, distributed task allocation, and constrained trajectory planning and control. Mesbahi directs the Robotics, Aerospace, and Information Networks Laboratory and serves as Executive Director of the Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation. His contributions have been integral to flagship NASA missions and have shaped advancements in the field, with former students leading in academia, industry, and government. He has held editorial roles including Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and contributed to professional service through NSF grants and course development in optimization, networked dynamic systems, robust control, and advanced spacecraft dynamics.