New faculty spotlight: Debdipta Goswami
Eleven new faculty members start their careers in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the 2022-2023 academic year. One of these new faculty is Debdipta Goswami, who will be an Assistant Professor beginning autumn semester 2022.
Goswami is from Kolkata, India, and he is a self-proclaimed “accidental engineer”. Goswami originally had planned on studying theoretical physics after high school, but due to the sociocultural climate of India at the time, he ended up studying engineering.
He completed his undergraduate degree at Jadavpur University in India. He went on to receive his PhD from the University of Maryland and worked as a postdoc at Princeton University. While in college, Goswami found himself gravitating toward nonlinear dynamics which was more physics-y, which then led him to control systems.
“When I started my engineering undergrad, my latent desire of studying physics kind of took me down the path of nonlinear dynamics with an obvious push towards control systems,” he said. “That ultimately led my graduate career in control systems at UMD. I found out that the current advancement in machine learning can contribute significantly towards the understanding of dynamical systems.”
Goswami’s field of study is dynamics, control, machine learning and robotics. He, one day, dreams to pursue the understanding of machine learning with dynamical systems perspective and apply it to large-scale autonomous systems.
He came to Ohio State because he found the vision, facilities, and collaborative spirit of MAE suitable for his career development. Also, Ohio State has a strong UAV culture which will greatly benefit his research.
Goswami’s research focuses on data-driven discovery and control of dynamical systems with a guaranteed performance.
“We are currently living in an era of unprecedented automation with our daily lives surrounded by a plethora of connected devices making it as convenient as it ever could be,” he said. “It would not be an exaggeration to predict that the new industrial revolution will ride on the automation in more areas, e.g., process automation in industrial manufacturing, logistical automation in self-driving vehicles and drones, and interconnection between the software and hardware in the form of Cyber-Physical Systems.”
His overall research goal is to develop data-driven algorithms for safety-critical control of complex systems and adaptive control of aerial robotics. Additionally, his teaching goal is to impart cutting-edge knowledge through effective classroom engagement and dissemination of contemporary research results through special graduate courses.
Goswami hopes to build a sustainable research program in machine learning for control of dynamical systems and safe autonomy and to build an aerial robotics testbed for agile aerial robot testing.
“I believe that this position presents me with an invaluable opportunity to lead the expansion of autonomy in human lives, influence young minds with scientific curiosity, and serve the society with scientific and scholarly activities,” he said.
Additionally, Goswami understands how competitive academia can be and how much pressure there is on researchers to get results.
“I am aware of the impact of this on the mental health of students and mentors,” he said. “I want to contribute to the mental well-being of the students and my fellow academics in any way possible.”
