The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Utah State University is looking for a Ph.D. student in control. The successful candidate is expected to perform high-quality scholarly research related to one or more of the following areas: (i) Distributed control of multi-agent systems with applications to networked mobile robots; (ii) Geometric approach and optimization-based control synthesis; (iii) Robust adaptive/ data-driven control of uncertain dynamical systems; (iv) Trajectory optimization for resilient trajectory planning.

The ideal candidates are required to have: (i) A Master of Science degree by the date of admission in a closely related field such as electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, and mathematics; (ii) A solid background and strong interest in systems, control, and optimization; (iii) Creative and critical thinking abilities, and good technical communication skills; (iv) Coding skills.

Interested students are encouraged to send an email to Dr. Sarsılmaz (burak.sarsilmaz@usu.edu) with (i) A curriculum vitae (please include a list of undergraduate and graduate courses taken related to systems, control, optimization, and mathematics with grades on these courses); (ii) A concise paragraph explaining your theoretical and experimental experience related to systems, control, and optimization; (iii) The contact information (name, affiliation, and email) of your current advisor and at least another reference.

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the position is filled. The expected start date is January 2025.

Utah State University is a Carnegie R1 University and a great place to study control and conduct research on control: https://sites.google.com/view/usu-arco/

Bio: Dr. Sarsılmaz is an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Utah State University. Before joining Utah State University, he was a postdoctoral scholar in the Autonomous Controls Laboratory at the University of Washington from 2020 to 2022. He received his M.A. degree in Mathematics and Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of South Florida in 2020. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Middle East Technical University in 2013 and 2016, respectively. From 2014 to 2016, he was a flight control systems engineer in the T625 multirole helicopter project at Turkish Aerospace Industries. His research interests include distributed control of multi-agent systems, geometric approach and optimization-based control, adaptive control, and trajectory planning.