Alejandra Castellanos is an Assistant Professor in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at El Paso. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2019 and has received the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) Summer Faculty Fellowship Award three times (2021–2023). A 2017 Amelia Earhart Fellow recognized by Zonta International, Dr. Castellanos has secured research funding from AFRL, AFOSR, and NSF. Her research centers on developing damage-tolerant polymer matrix composites, advancing ceramic matrix composites for hypersonic applications, and applying machine learning to discover high-entropy, ultra-high-temperature ceramics.
Shiyao Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). He is also a member of the Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies (IPPM) at the UTA Research Institute (UTARI). Before joining UTA, Dr. Lin was a senior failure analysis R&D engineer at Intel Corporation and a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Michigan. Dr. Lin obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Aerospace Engineering and his M.S. and B.S. degrees in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST).