Professor Rao earned his Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University, his M.S.E. in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan, and his B.S. in mechanical engineering and A.B. in mathematics from Cornell University.  Professor Rao’s research interests lie in the area of control and optimization of space and air vehicles and combine the development of new computational methods for optimal control with novel applications including space mission planning, performance optimization of atmospheric flight vehicles, and other vehicular control problems (for example, high performance ground and underwater vehicles). …