Naira Hovakimyan is cofounder and chief scientist of IntelinAir, and a W. Grafton and Lillian B. Wilkins Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests are in control and optimization, autonomous systems, neural networks, game theory and their applications in aerospace, robotics, mechanical, agricultural, electrical, petroleum, biomedical engineering and elderly care. Before joining the faculty of UIUC in 2008, she spent time as a research scientist at Stuttgart University in Germany, French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA) in France, Georgia Institute of Technology, and she was on faculty of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering of Virginia Tech during 2003-2008. Naira Hovakimyan received her PhD from the Institute of Applied Mathematics of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.