December 15, 2025
Thinh Doan, an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics (ASE/EM), has been honored with the 2025 Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize. The award, established in 2005, is given annually by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Control Systems Society (CSS) to “recognize outstanding achievement in research in systems and control by a young researcher and to honor the memory of Dr. Antonio Ruberti.”
Doan, who joined UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering in 2024, specializes in advancing control and learning algorithms that enable a team of robots, such as UAVs or ground vehicles, to help humans perform complex tasks. He leads the Control, Optimization and Online Learning for Autonomy (COOL) lab in the ASE/EM department.
Doan’s work helps to address critical societal challenges. One application involves deploying drones to support wildfire response—for example, gathering data on fire boundaries and conditions to help develop escape routes for trapped firefighters. Another application uses drones to collect microbial samples from wildfire smoke, enabling researchers to study how these microbes behave and travel through the air.
"I feel deeply honored and grateful to receive the IEEE CSS Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Award. This recognition encourages me to continue pursuing impactful research in control, optimization, and learning for real-world systems," said Doan when asked how it felt to be selected for the award.
Before joining ASE/EM, Doan served as an assistant professor at Virginia Tech’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award and the AFOSR Young Investigator Program award. He earned his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018.The award, which includes a $5,000 and a photo-engraved plaque, was presented to Doan at the 2025 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control held in Rio de Janeiro Dec. 9-12.
Ufuk Topcu, a professor in the ASE/EM department, also received the prize in 2020.
