On May 28, 2021, Pedro B. C. Leal became the latest student to successfully complete the journey to a doctoral degree under Dr. Hartl. Pedro was one of the first students recruited into the MAESTRO Laboratory at its founding, having also spent his senior year working under Dr. Hartl before returning to Brazil to complete his undergraduate degree and also obtain a Masters of Science.
(The now Dr.) Leal’s research interests were uniquely broad and he has been uniquely productive, having produced seven journal papers during his time at Texas A&M. His studies have considered new geometric descriptions of morphing aircraft shapes, avian-inspired SMA muscle response, wind tunnel demonstrations of adaptive bird-shaped wings, the statistical modeling of pressure wave propagation from a supersonic aircraft through the atmosphere to the ground, the design optimization of morphing aerostructures considering the probabilities of operational conditions, and new mathematical methods for predicting the bending response of arbitrarily curved beam sections under arbitrary loading, among others. Pedro will be taking a position at Joby Aviation, working on advanced urban air mobility solutions, where there is no doubt he will make a large impact. Congratulations Dr. Leal!