Ali Pakniyat

Teaching Experiences

Graduate Student Supervision

M³AC Lab Members

• Tyler Halterman, Ph.D. candidate, University of Alabama (2022 – present)
  (also: Controls Design Engineer at General Motors)
• (FNU) Arslan, Ph.D. student, University of Alabama (2024 – present)
• Fardin Tavakoli, Ph.D. student, University of Alabama (2024 – present)

M³AC Lab Alumni

• Armel Koulong, Ph.D., University of Alabama (2021 – 2026)
  Dissertation Title: “Adaptive and Predictive Distributed Safety in Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Systems”
  (now: GNC Engineer at Marshall Space Flight Center)
• Taha Yasini, M.Sc., University of Alabama (2021 – 2024)
  (now: Senior Research Engineer at Vista Turbine Company)
• Phillip Means, M.Sc., University of Alabama (2021 – 2023)
  (now: Electronic Engineer at Defense Intelligence Agency)
• Aidan Joyce, M.Sc., University of Alabama (2021 – 2023)
  (now: Field Engineer at The Roberts Company)
• Saiedeh Akbari, M.Sc. (co-advised), University of Alabama (2021 – 2023)
  (now: PhD Student at the University of Florida)

Non-M³AC Lab Members

• Xavier Kipping, Ph.D. student (co-advising), University of Alabama (2024 – present)
• Akan Selim, Ph.D. student (co-advising), Georgia Institute of Technology (2024 – present)
• Scott Yue Guan, Ph.D. (co-advising), Georgia Institute of Technology (2019 – 2025)
• Kelsey Hawkins, Ph.D. (co-advised), Georgia Institute of Technology (2019 – 2021)
  (now: Research Scientist at Toyota Research Institute (TRI))
• Dena Firoozi, Ph.D. (co-advised), McGill University (2016 – 2017)
  (now: Assistant Professor at University of Toronto)

Selected Invited Talks

• 2026-04-17 Center for Resilient Autonomous Systems Seminar, Irvine (CA), USA
• 2025-07-29 SIAM Symposium on Recent Advances on Mean Field Control and Mean Field Games, Montreal (QC), Canada
• 2025-05-10 Workshop on Stochastic, Mean-Field and Network Systems, and Beyond, Montreal (QC), Canada
• 2025-02-14 UNC Charlotte Robotics Seminars, Charlotte (NC), USA
• 2024-07-05 CIM – GERAD Informal Systems Seminar (ISS), Montreal (QC), Canada
• 2023-04-03 UCSC Applied Math Seminar, Santa Cruz (CA), USA
• 2023-03-16 IUTAM Symposium on Optimal Guidance and Control for Autonomous Systems, Honolulu (HI), USA
• 2022-09-23 UA Applied Math Seminar, Tuscaloosa (AL), USA
• 2021-04-07 UA Mechanical Engineering Seminar, Tuscaloosa (AL), USA
• 2020-03-26 Arizona State University, School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy Seminar, Tempe (AZ), USA
• 2020-03-18 University of Michigan – Dearborn, Electrical & Computer Engineering Seminar, Dearborn (MI), USA
• 2019-05-30 CIM – GERAD Informal Systems Seminar (ISS), Montreal (QC), Canada
• 2019-05-27 Queen’s University Control Theory Seminar, Kingston (ON), Canada
• 2019-04-09 Center for Control, Dynamical Systems, and Computation (CCDC) Seminar, Santa Barbara (CA), USA
• 2018-10-13 The 2018 Midwest Optimization Meeting, Oxford (OH), USA
• 2018-06-07 University College Dublin, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Dublin, Ireland
• 2018-04-25 Michigan Postdoctoral Association of the College of Engineering (MPACE) Seminar, Ann Arbor (MI), USA
• 2018-01-30 Michigan Robotics Colloquium, Ann Arbor (MI), USA
• 2017-09-08 University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Santa Barbara (CA), USA
• 2017-09-05 Stanford University, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford (CA), USA
• 2017-01-30 University of Michigan, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ann Arbor (MI), USA
• 2017-01-06 University of California, Irvine, Aeronatics, Dynamics and Control Lab Seminar, Irvine (CA), USA
• 2016-07-21 IEEE Montreal – Concordia University, Montreal (QC), Canada
• 2016-05-11 The 7th Biannual Meeting on System and Control Theory, Kingston (ON), Canada
• 2014-05-05 The 6th Biannual Meeting on System and Control Theory, Waterloo (ON), Canada