People

The students, researchers, and collaborators of the ACRE Lab.

Principal Investigator

Max Cohen, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Max Cohen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University. Max earned the B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2018, the M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University in 2022, and the Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University in 2023. Prior to joining NC State in the fall of 2025, Max served as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the California Institute of Technology from 2023-2025. Notable awards received include a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2019), an Outstanding Dissertation in Mechanical Engineering award from Boston University (2023), and the best paper award at the Conference on Learning for Dynamics and Control (2025).

Ph.D. Students

Mohammad Mirtaba

PhD student, started Spring 2026

Mohammad Mirtaba received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Shiraz University of Technology in 2020 and his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2025. He is currently a first-year Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University, with research interests in nonlinear and safety-critical control, particularly for aerial vehicles.

Yichun Qu

PhD student, started Fall 2026

Yichun Qu received her B.S. in Electronic and Information Engineering from Xidian University in 2024 and her M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Brown University in 2026. She is currently a first year Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University. Her research interests include nonlinear control, safety-critical control, and reinforcement learning.

Undergraduate and Master’s Students

Akshay Pradhan

Graduate researcher, Computer Engineering

Nicholas Sutton

Undergraduate researcher, Computer Science

I am undergraduate student majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. My research interests lie in safety-critical navigation for robots and autonomous systems. I am particularly interested in developing novel algorithms spanning perception, planning, and control that enable autonomous systems to navigate safely in complex, uncertain, and previously unseen environments.

Maya Kazel

Undergraduate researcher, Electrical Engineering

Alumni

Doruk Demiray

High School Student, Summer 2026