Faculty

Robyn Woollands

Assistant Professor

Dr. Robyn Woollands is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). At UIUC she runs the Space Situational Awareness and Space Sustainability at Illinois (SSASSI) computational research lab. Her research primarily focuses on computational astrodynamics, trajectory optimization and estimation. Dr. Woollands has secured research funding from prominent entities such as the Aerospace Corporation, L3Harris Technologies, NASA and AFRL. She is a recipient of the 2024 Air Force Office of Scientific Research's Young Investigator Career Award. Presently she advises six PhD students and two MS students.

Prior to her academic role she held the position of Mission Design Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology. During her nearly four-year term at JPL, she actively participated in significant projects, including her membership in the navigation team for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and JAXA’s Hyabusa2 mission’s return phase. At JPL, Dr. Woollands undertook the responsibilities of Principal Investigator, supervising a collaborative team of NASA and university researchers focused on the development of low thrust trajectory optimization tools. Furthermore, her expertise extended to trajectory design for the Europa Lander mission concept, as well as her involvement in studies pertaining to a Mars-oriented cubesat constellation mission, potentially enabling comprehensive investigations of dust devils on the Martian surface.

Prior to joining JPL, Dr. Woollands completed her PhD in the Aerospace Department at Texas A&M University, where she was advised by Professor John Junkins. She is a recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Student Doctoral Award for Excellence in Research at Texas A&M University. Dr. Woollands completed B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and an M.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Minnesota. While at the University of Canterbury, she also completed the Graduate Certificate in Antarctic Studies and spent two weeks in Antarctica. Dr. Woollands holds a Private Pilot's License from Canterbury Aero Club in New Zealand.