Teaching & Mentoring
Autodrive Mentoring Experience
As the team captain for the Autodrive Challenge, for two years between 2023 and 2025, I have mentored around 40 undergraduates and 10 graduate students each year, guiding them through both static tasks and dynamic tasks. For the static challenges, I guided students in gathering experimental data, writing detailed reports, and presenting them to industry leaders. For dynamic challenges, I mentored students for tasks such as developing and testing obstacle avoidance algorithms on the Chevrolet Bolt.
Team picture with most of graduate and undergraduate students in Rellis (September 2024).
MathWorks simulation team presenting their work in front of the judges (February 2024).Students Mentored
In addition to mentoring students for the AutoDrive challenge, I have mentored students from diverse backgrounds from multiple universities for research. I guided them in research and project implementation, which have resulted in various publications. Below is a list of students I have mentored, grouped by university, and a brief description of the project.
- UC Irvine
- Luke Chen — LinkedInAugust 2025 - presentPh.D. candidate in EECS.
- David Martin — LinkedInAugust 2025 - presentPh.D. student in EECS.
- Praneet Iddamsetty — LinkedInSeptember 2025 - presentPh.D. student in EECS.
- Yiran (Katherine) Jin — LinkedInSeptember 2025 - presentM.S. student in EECS.
- Yeachan Okh — LinkedInOctober 2025 - presentM.S. student in Computer Engineering.
- Tommy Zhou — LinkedInSeptember 2025 - presentFreshman, EECS.
- Texas A&M University
- Nitesh Kumar — LinkedInJanuary 2025 - presentPh.D. student in Mechanical Engineering.
- Anshuman Swain — LinkedInJanuary 2025 - presentPh.D. student in Mechanical Engineering.
- Sixu Li — LinkedInNovember 2023 - April 2025Ph.D. candidate in Civil Engineering.
- Saurabh Belgaonkar — LinkedInNovember 2023 - June 2025Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering.
- Karthik Moorthy — LinkedInJanuary 2023 - January 2024M.S. student in Mechanical Engineering.
- Pranav Rajbhandari — LinkedInJune 2023 - September 2024Undergraduate in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (now Ph.D. student).
- IIT Madras
- Roshan GrandeSeptember 2020 - July 2021M.S. student in Engineering Design
Courses Taught
- Advanced System Dynamics and Controls (MEEN 431) — Texas A&M University, Fall 2022, Spring 2025I delivered six lectures in this fourth year undergraduate course in Mechanical Engineering, comprising around 15 students. I introduced key concepts such as the notion of equilibrium for a dynamical system, kinematics, and PID controller design, using in-class examples and experimental videos to reinforce student understanding.
- Engineering Analysis for Mechanical Engineers (MEEN 357) — Texas A&M University, Fall 2021I served as a teaching assistant, supporting a cohort of 120 students, in this third year undergraduate course in Mechanical Engineering. The course focuses on techniques such as root finding, boundary value problems, and curve fitting. I guided students through written and coding assignments (in Python), addressed their questions, and graded their work.