People
A growing research group working across astrodynamics, optimal guidance and control, space situational awareness, and scientific machine learning.
Lab director
Assistant Professor · Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Dr. D’Ambrosio is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of South Florida. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Space Systems Engineering Laboratory at the University of Arizona and in the Astrodynamics, Robotics, and Controls Laboratory at MIT.
He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace and space engineering and a Ph.D. in Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Space Science from Sapienza University of Rome. His work spans optimal guidance and control, orbit determination, space-object behavioral analysis, machine-learning controller certification, and space-environment evolution.
He has authored more than 30 journal papers and 40 conference proceedings. Beyond aerospace, he holds a master’s degree in Classical Piano from Conservatorio Licinio Refice in Frosinone, Italy.
Full profile →Research group
Ph.D. Student · Aerospace Engineering
Dylan is a Ph.D. student of Aerospace Engineering at the University of South Florida, where he also received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. His primary interests are in optimal control, space mission planning, and engineering education. As an undergraduate, he worked with the RANCS research group at USF, which sparked his interest in control theory.
Ph.D. Student · Aerospace Engineering
Ilaria Cannizzaro earned her Master’s degree in Space Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, with a thesis focused on the use of onboard artificial intelligence for autonomous robotic applications in space debris removal missions. She also earned a Second-Level Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the School of Aerospace Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome.
After two years of industry experience in aerospace navigation, she joined the School of Aerospace Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome as a research fellow on the “COMEONBOARDPSG!” project, in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Her work focused on the design and development of AI-enabled onboard computing architectures to support autonomous operations in next-generation Earth observation missions. As part of this research, she also spent six months as a visiting researcher at the University of Arizona, where she investigated the use of reinforcement learning for autonomous spacecraft decision-making.
In 2026, she began her Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at the University of South Florida under the supervision of Dr. D’Ambrosio at the CIRO Lab. Her research interests include autonomous guidance, navigation, and control, space robotics and manipulation, vision-based AI for spacecraft decision-making, and space situational awareness.
Additional members
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