Jada Carter, BSAE 2026

What is your next adventure?

I'm starting a full-time job at Lockheed Martin in Marietta, Georgia, where I'll be working on their C-130J Super Hercules aircraft in the structures area. I won't know until I start exactly what I’ll be doing on the aircraft.
 

What about your next adventure are you most looking forward to?

I'm excited to just start applying everything that I've learned in classes and in other experiences I've had and then also just be able to work on something that has a real-world application and an impact on people. Also, I'm from the area, but I haven't seen a lot of the things there. I haven't really explored. I look forward to having a little more free time to go out, explore the area, and meet new people.

Did you have any previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?

Yes, so last summer I worked at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, where I worked with the Force Protection Systems Branch, where we tested counter uncrewed aircraft systems, testing radars and sensors like drones. I also helped them create test plans and test cards. I spent one semester under Lee Whitcher, senior research engineer. I worked on testing lithium-ion batteries.  For the past two semesters, I've been working with Selcuk Cimtalay, senior research engineer on systems modeling research. I joined the Georgia Tech Supersonics Club. I was in their structures sub-team, refining my skills on CAD and the different analyses for their aircraft.

How did your educational experience at Georgia Tech help you to achieve your goals?

It’s really the number of opportunities the School offers. Not just the clubs, teams, or groups. There’s always something for everyone, but also the events, like networking opportunities and social events that help bring you out of your shell and meet new people. For me, especially with aerospace-related activities, it helped me better understand the different areas within aerospace and ultimately figure out what I wanted to pursue after graduation.

I also think Georgia Tech is very rigorous. As a transfer student, it hit me a little hard at first. I remember thinking, this isn’t what I was expecting. But it really helped me develop my critical thinking and problem-solving skills. One of the biggest things I took away was learning how to reach out for help. I didn’t used to be that person, but I learned to go to my professors, TAs, and even friends in my classes to ask questions and get the support I needed.

What advice would you give to an underclassman who would like to follow the same path?

Be confident in yourself, because I definitely wasn’t at the beginning. You know far more than you think you do. At the same time, it’s important to stay humble: don’t be afraid to admit what you don’t know and to ask questions. The people around you always have something to teach you, and there’s always room to learn and grow, no matter the environment you’re in.

I also believe in taking full advantage of the opportunities and people around you—those who are there to support and guide you. Even if you don’t think an opportunity is for you, try it anyway. Like my mom always says, how do you know you don’t like it if you haven’t tried it?

You never know who you might meet, what you might discover you enjoy, or how one opportunity could lead to another down the road.

Jackson Larisch, BSAE 2022, PhD AE 2025

What is your next adventure?

I’m working at Boeing as an acoustics engineer. I recently packed up and moved across the country to Seattle, Washington. I finally left the South and landed somewhere much colder, which means I’m no longer sweating at night. I’m putting my research to great use. In grad school, my research focused on aeroacoustics with Professor Krish Ahuja, particularly jet and jet exhaust noise, so I’ve been a great fit here at Boeing. I’m already applying that work while also expanding my knowledge into other areas. Even though my research centered on jet noise, I’m now working on different types of engine noise, airframe noise, and noise prediction methods, collaborating with engine companies, propulsion teams, and structures teams on the many components that can generate noise.

What about your next adventure are you most looking forward to?

For one, I’m just enjoying exploring a new place; Seattle is such an amazing place to live. I’m also excited to be able to jump right into work that ties directly to my expertise. Normally, when you arrive at a big company, at least at Boeing, if you come in fresh out of college with a bachelor’s or even a master’s degree, you usually start as a Level 1 or Level 2 and rotate through different programs. In the noise group, for example, we have several new hires coming in this summer, and I think one or two of them are actually from Georgia Tech. Typically, you’d rotate through different areas, spending a year or so in each, until you find your niche. What’s been so great for me, and what I’m really excited about in terms of the doors this Ph.D. has opened, is that as soon as I arrived, they knew I knew my stuff and wanted to leverage that knowledge. 

Did you have any previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?

I am a Georgia Tech researcher through and through. This is my first “out of Techf tech experience.”. It is my first time working in industry. I never had an internship or a co-op, but I gathered years and years of research experience at Georgia Tech. 

I started undergraduate research in my third year. That was when I took AE 4451 Jet and Rocket Propulsion and realized how exciting this field really was. I went to the Ben T. Zinn Combustion Lab website and reached out to a professor and a research engineer, and said, “My name is Jackson, I got an A in this class, and I want to work in the Combustion Lab.” That became my first research experience, working in one of Professor Tim Lieuwen’s groups on a model-scale combustor as part of a project sponsored by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. I worked there for about a year.

Around the same time, one of my senior electives was Space Instrumentation for Life Detection, a joint aerospace and Earth and atmospheric sciences course taught by Professor Chris Carr. The work was completely different and closer to astrobiology. For the class project, I built a system to grow bacteria in a sealed container and detect the gases they emit using a small electronic nose. The idea was to search for chemical signatures that would indicate life. After the class ended, I asked Prof. Carr if I could keep working on the project, and he gave me a spot in the Planetary eXploration Lab (PXL). I continued for another semester, and that research material eventually flew on a CubeSat mission a few years later through the Planetary Exploration Lab. 

Those experiences made me realize how much I loved research. It felt like being placed in an academic sandbox where the goal was simply to find a problem and solve it. After earning my bachelor’s degree in Spring 2022, I joined the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) as a summer research intern. That was my first exposure to acoustics research. I worked on rotor noise from electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles, essentially flying taxis. If you have ever heard a quadcopter drone hovering nearby, you know how irritating that sound can be, and a lot of work goes into making those systems quieter. That summer was also how I met my advisor, Professor Krish Ahuja.

I later interviewed with him and joined his at GTRI-ATAS, where I spent three years working on jet noise research for the F.A.A. as part of a large multi-university and industry study called ASCENT 59. The project involved universities including Stanford, Illinois, and Penn State, along with industry partners like Gulfstream Aerospace. I even traveled to Washington, D.C., to present our work when my advisor could not attend. I ended up receiving more questions than anyone else presenting that day, and people lined up afterward to talk about the research.

Along the way, I also supported other projects at GTRI, including work on underground pipe leak detection using acoustic and seismic sensors, and collaborating with colleagues working on high-temperature plasmas and hypersonics. By the time I entered industry, I did not just have academic credentials, I had years of applied research experience that prepared me to hit the ground running.

How did your educational experience at Georgia Tech help you to achieve your goals?

Georgia Tech first taught me how to be an engineering student. You take the classes, earn the grades, and learn the material. But once I got into research, I realized there’s so much more to engineering than getting an A on a thermodynamics exam. Georgia Tech helped me put that knowledge into practice. Being able to solve textbook problems or do well on a test is important, but what really makes an engineer is working in real engineering environments solving real problems and doing the work engineers actually do. Georgia Tech provides those opportunities in a way few places can. That’s the biggest thing I tell people considering Georgia Tech: the research opportunities are world-class, and the doors that are open, even to undergraduates are incredible. Nothing prepares you for the real world like that. I honestly wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t taken advantage of those opportunities, because that’s what makes you a helluva engineer.

What advice would you give to an underclassman who would like to follow the same path?

The biggest piece of advice I can offer is to find something that truly excites you, something that drives you. If you don’t actively seek out those opportunities, you’ll probably do okay. You’ll get good grades, you’ll graduate, and you’ll probably still land a good job. But something I really love about my job is that I don’t think about how much money I make. I love what I do because I took the time to figure out what I enjoy and what motivates me. If you come across a topic in class and think, “This is really cool,” follow up on it. Talk to your professor, look into what they’re doing in their lab, and see if there’s a way to get involved. If you worked on a class project you genuinely enjoyed, ask if you can continue that work in a research setting.

Take advantage of your electives, too. There are so many great opportunities that aren’t strictly part of the required curriculum, but you won’t discover them unless you try. I didn’t even realize I was interested in acoustics until I saw it offered as an elective. I took it because I’d been involved in choir and band growing up and thought sound was interesting. Four years later, it’s what I do for a living. You have to make opportunities for yourself. Don’t wait for things to fall into your lap. Life comes from you, not at you.

Cayetana Salinas Rodriguez, BSAE 2024, MSAE 2026

What is your next adventure?

I'm moving across the country to pursue my Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. My research will focus on analyzing and resolving multi-agent interactive scenarios and will combine tools from game theory, control theory, and optimization. This inherently interdisciplinary area has many applications, including aerospace and transportation systems, power systems, and robotics. I decided to transition from Aerospace to Electrical and Computer Engineering because control theory sits at the intersection of several engineering fields, and where it is housed often depends on the institution and faculty. At UCSB, I found that several ECE faculty shared my research interests, and I was especially drawn to the department’s academic focus and expertise in networked control systems.

What about your next adventure are you most looking forward to?

I’m excited about the opportunity to continue diving deeper into my research while also gaining a broader perspective by changing academic environments. I hope that joining a new school and a different department will allow me to bring a unique perspective shaped by my Aerospace Engineering background while also expanding the range of applications I work on. I am especially looking forward to continuing to develop a taste for interesting research questions and to the process of defining my own research vision.

Teaching will also be an important part of my graduate experience. For part of my degree, I will be serving as a teaching assistant (TA) for undergraduate courses, building on the experience I gained during my master’s program. Working with students and being on the other side of the classroom has been both rewarding and valuable for developing my communication skills. I’ve really enjoyed teaching, and continuing to work closely with students is something I look forward to as a PhD student.

Beyond academics, I’m excited to meet new people and experience a different environment. Being near the beach and having access to outdoor activities is an added bonus, and I’m looking forward to the balance and new perspective that the environment at UCSB can bring alongside my research.

Did you have any previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?

During my undergraduate studies at Georgia Tech, I initially began working in a very different area, combustion. This was under Professor Adam Steinberg in the Ben T. Zinn Combustion Lab. My interest in control systems developed during the summer of my third year, when I interned at optimAero, a small consulting firm in California that works closely with major aerospace companies on guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) problems, mainly focused on unmanned aerial systems (UAS). That experience gave me my first hands-on exposure to controls beyond coursework, and I found the work especially engaging.

In my final year of undergrad, I joined Professor Jonathan Rogers’ lab, where I worked on aircraft dynamics and control simulations. Then, the summer between my undergraduate and master’s degrees, I interned at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at their Center for Automation and Robotics in Madrid, Spain. There, I worked on implementing autonomous navigation algorithms for drones used to monitor crops inside greenhouses, further expanding my experience with autonomous systems and robotics.

Finally, during my master’s degree I took a more theoretical turn in my controls research by working with Professor Sarah Li when she joined the department alongside Professor Rogers. Since then, I’ve been working on game-theoretic control, focusing on how autonomous systems interact with other agents, such as humans, in the real world. My research explores how these systems can integrate more seamlessly by modeling interactions in ways that align with the uncertainty that arises as autonomous systems are deployed in the real world. One example is how autonomous cars can make a decision when they do not know the intentions of other cars surrounding them. I recently completed my master’s thesis, where I looked at a specific scenario that described these types of interactions through game theory.

How did your educational experience at Georgia Tech help you to achieve your goals?

Georgia Tech gave me a great deal of freedom to explore a wide range of interests. During my undergraduate, I was heavily involved with the Design Build Fly (DBF) club where I learned about aircraft design and also developed my leadership skills. I also spent time in the Combustion Lab, and later transitioned into work in control systems and robotics. Because Georgia Tech is such a large and research-driven institution, there were countless opportunities to get involved in both research and extracurricular activities. That breadth allowed me to explore multiple areas before ultimately narrowing my focus and identifying what I wanted to pursue in graduate school.

Beyond academics, the environment has been equally valuable. The friends and colleagues I’ve met are now going on to work at major aerospace companies or pursuing graduate studies across a wide range of programs. Being surrounded by peers taking such diverse paths has given me a broad perspective on industry, academia, and research, and helped me better understand where I fit within that landscape. I think the size and diversity of Georgia Tech are especially valuable when you’re still exploring your interests and figuring out what direction truly feels right.

Siddharth Suratia, BSAE 2026

What is your next adventure?

I’ll be starting full-time at Boom Supersonic in Denver at the end of June. I will be a Commercial Analyst. It’s not a typical engineering role, but it really brings together everything I’ve done over the past few summers into one job. 
I actually met with Boom recruiters at the AE Career Fair. At the time, I was weighing a few offers and assumed I’d go into something more traditional like consulting or a typical aerospace job on my horizon. I told them I have a pretty atypical aerospace engineering background. I’ve done one summer in traditional engineering, then worked at a startup, and even spent time in investment banking, which is kind of wild. I’ve always been interested in both business and engineering, and they were like, “Hey, we can actually build a role around that.” That was really cool—they basically took what felt like my dream job description and shaped a position on their commercial team around it.

What about your next adventure are you most looking forward to?

The biggest thing for me is that I really feel like I’ve lived my college experience. I worked in Nashville one summer and in D.C. another, so I’ve gotten to experience different cities and industries, but I haven’t spent time out West yet, and I’m really excited about that. I’m also excited to join a company that’s doing something truly new. Boom isn’t just building supersonic commercial aircraft—they’re also designing engines and turbines for data centers. It’s two very different things, but the idea is so bold that it requires creative funding and problem-solving, and none of the major aerospace players are doing anything like it.

At this stage of my career, I’m excited to experience the ups and downs and just learn as much as I can. I see this role as a stepping stone, maybe for a few years, maybe longer if I love it—but very much a transitional period. It’s about working post-grad, understanding how the corporate and startup worlds operate, and learning how businesses are run.

Did you have any previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?

My first summer, between freshman and sophomore year, I went back to the same place I interned in high school. It’s an aerospace manufacturer called Essex Industries based in St. Louis, Missouri, which is where I’m from. They make things like check valves, liquid oxygen equipment, and platform controls for aircraft including the F-35. I worked at one of their facilities doing sustaining engineering, which is kind of an extension of manufacturing engineering. 

Sophomore year, I reached out to Cedric Justin, a research engineer in Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory ( ASDL), who was working on hybrid electric aircraft cost modeling. I ended up spending my entire second year on that research. I was part of a NASA-sponsored project and was involved things with like comparing nonstop versus connecting itineraries and doing cost modeling for regional aircraft, such as the ATR 72. My role was mostly validating the models, making sure the operating costs actually made sense. I worked closely with a graduate student, and that experience made me really comfortable with Excel and Python. That year taught me a lot of technical and analytical skills.

That research directly led to my next internship. I ended up interning at Whisper Aero the summer between sophomore and junior year in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a small startup, around 50 people, and I did a little bit of everything. I worked on research like what I had done before, but I also edited videos, helped plan events, and even did acoustics research on how propulsors affect animals like birds and military K-9. It was a really interesting summer, and I loved it. I’m still close with the team and even taking senior design now with people I interned with there. That’s also where I first got exposed to patent law. On my first day, I noticed a group of people in a conference room and found out they were all patent attorneys helping engineers file patents. They were all Georgia Tech alumni with engineering backgrounds, including aerospace, mechanical, and computer science, and one of them went on to law school at Yale. Talking with her really opened my eyes to paths beyond traditional engineering.

Going into my last summer, I wanted to try something totally different. A lot of my friends were preparing for consulting and finance recruiting, and I thought internships should be about exploring. I decided to try consulting and focused on firms that specialize in aerospace. That led me to Renaissance Strategic Advisors, which I found through the Georgia Tech career fair. I interned with them last summer and really enjoyed the experience. The firm is made up of a mix of engineers, people with policy or legal backgrounds, and people from finance. The work involved advising aerospace companies on acquisitions, strategy, and investments, so it was very different from anything I had done before. 

How did your educational experience at Georgia Tech help you to achieve your goals?

Throughout my time at Georgia Tech, mentorship and campus resources played a huge role in shaping my path. As someone interested in an atypical mix of engineering, business, and policy, the Mentors in Residence program was especially impactful. Talking with alumni who started in aerospace and later went on to law school or business school helped me realize that the path I was exploring wasn’t as unusual as I thought. Those conversations gave me honest advice, perspective, and reassurance from people who had already navigated similar crossroads.

AE Career Fair was another major factor in where I am now. Two of my internships and my full-time role at Boom Supersonic directly came from career fair connections. Being able to meet recruiters in person, explain my background, and follow up quickly made a huge difference. Looking back, the career fair opened doors I might not have found otherwise and showed me the value of putting myself out there, being proactive, and taking advantage of the resources available at Tech.

What advice would you give to an underclassman who would like to follow the same path?

When you’re doing something a little atypical, finding people who’ve done similar things is huge. Especially the Mentors-in-Residence program. Having people who are a few steps ahead of you, who’ve already gone through the pitfalls and can tell you, “Don’t do this, do this instead,” is incredibly valuable. I used to assume no one had taken a path like mine, but there are people who have. You just have to go find them.

That means reaching out. Send cold emails. Message people on LinkedIn. Be okay with not getting a response. The worst thing that can happen is someone says no, or you don’t hear back at all. And that’s really not that bad when you think about it.

I also think aerospace is a really interesting field because it teaches you so many different skills. At some point, whether it’s early in your time at Tech or early in your career, you kind of have to decide if you want to go very deep technically in one area through research and higher studies, or if you want to explore more adjacent paths, or even try to do a mix of both. I think being intentional about that decision early on really helps.

Another big piece of advice is to get to know people in your classes and put yourself out there. Apply to things even if you don’t think you’ll get them. Honestly, why not? Most of the time it won’t work out, and that’s fine. But when it does, those opportunities can completely reshape your time here. I’ve had a few moments like that where saying yes changed everything for me.

So, my biggest advice is to just shoot your shot. Say yes when opportunities come up. Don’t be afraid to forge your own path and do your own thing. That’s what I’ve tried to do, and it’s what I hope to keep doing. And honestly, one of the best ways to avoid competition is to do something uniquely your own.