Hello, my name is Kevin Dee. I am a master's student in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine, and a research scientist at Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center.
I studied engineering at Swarthmore College (Class of 2022), with a minor in math. The engineering program there is general, but my interests lie in electrical engineering, aerospace, and communications. I expect to finish my graduate studies at the University of California, Irvine, in December 2026. My thesis is on the dynamic deployment of UAV networks for wireless communication and sensing.
As a graduate student at UCI, I work with members of the Center for Resilient Autonomous Systems on an NSF-funded project on using networked UAVs to fight wildfires. I have studied and developed guidance algorithms that steer a swarm toward a ground hotspot for optimal sensing while maintaining safe distances between UAVs, respecting geofencing constraints, avoiding obstacles, and ensuring that the UAVs are positioned to maintain the radio links that keep their network connected. Much of my time has been spent developing and testing these algorithms in the miSim simulation environment that I created for this task, but the best part of the work has been taking the algorithms out to the NSF's AERPAW testbed and collecting real flight and radio data. Some of this work has been published.
Before and occasionally during my graduate studies, I have been working at Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center HQ in Palo Alto. Previously, I interned there for three summers. After finishing my undergraduate studies, I joined the ATC's Phenomenology Lab as a research scientist. The main focuses of my work have been modeling the emissive and reflective signatures of exoatmospheric targets and developing flight software and algorithms. Both of these tasks are in support of a new exoatmospheric missile interceptor program.
Before enrolling at Swarthmore, I was a student at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. While in high school, I got my start in projects and research as a volunteer mentor at MakeX Palo Alto. My first projects took shape at MakeX. This was also when I first experimented with satellite communications projects and high-power model rocketry.
If you want to get in touch, please email me at krdee1(at)gmail(dot)com.