Dr. Ran Dai is an associate professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University. Before joining Purdue, she was the Netjets Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University. She received her B.S. degree in Automation Science from Beihang University and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Auburn University. After graduation, she worked as an engineer in an automotive technology company, Dynamic Research, Inc., and then joined University of Washington as a postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Dai’s research focuses on control of autonomous systems, numerical optimization, and networked dynamical systems. She received the NSF Career Award and NASA Early Faculty Career Award. Dr. Dai is serving as an associate editor of IEEE Transaction on Aerospace and Electronic Systems and the conference editorial board of IEEE Control Systems Society.