2024-2025 Leadership Team
Vrinda Thakur: Team Captain
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Year: Junior
Role: Vrinda oversees all internal and external aspects of MACH and serves as the face of the organization to the aerospace community.
Interests: Vrinda enjoys reading (especially mystery thrillers), competing with the boxing team, and learning to fly RC planes (on the simulator as of now). She also listens to a lot of rock and indie pop and is a Star Wars fan.
Alex Lopez: Aerodynamics Lead
Major: Aerospace Engineering
Year: Junior
Role:
Interests: Aside from his interest in computer science and aerodynamics, Alex spends a great deal of his time going on hikes, studying chess, finding new music, and playing an array of sports including soccer, basketball, and tennis.
Christian Anderson: Chief Engineer
Major: Aerospace Engineering
Year: Sophomore
Role: Christian collaborates with leads and team members to ensure all aircraft components integrate seamlessly into a cohesive system, overseeing technical issue resolution and driving the adoption of new technologies.
Interests: Outside of designing and building airplanes, Christian enjoys driving on backroads and playing board games with friends.
Owen Smolek: Propulsion Lead
Major: Aerospace Engineering
Year: Senior
Role: Owen leads the propulsion sub-team and oversees battery and propeller selection, thrust optimization, and system integration to ensure efficient and reliable propulsion for the aircraft.
Interests: Owen enjoys mountain biking, board games, and flying rc planes. He also really likes going on road trips with friends to the Upper Peninsula and hiking along Lake Superior.
Eric Gavizon: Business Lead
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Year: Sophomore
Role: Eric’s role on the team includes leading business operations for MACH, including sponsorship acquisition, fundraising, budget management, recruitment, and advertisement.
Interests: Eric may serve as the business lead for MACH, but he is still an engineer at heart. He loves learning about and building airplanes, specifically using renewable technologies. Aside from that his hobbies are archery, and cycling.
Madison Johnston: Construction Manager
Major: Aerospace Engineering
Year: Sophomore
Role: Madison manages the construction of MACH’s aircraft and prototypes, overseeing assembly, material selection, and quality control to ensure precise and timely build completion, while coordinating with sub-teams for seamless integration.
Interests: In addition to MACH, Madison enjoys reading, particularly fantasy novels, baking, and playing board games with her friends.
Sabrina Hansen: Structures Lead
Major: Aerospace Engineering
Year: Junior
Role: Sabrina trains and leads team members in preliminary and detailed design of the aircraft using CAD software. As part of this process, she works with other leads to select the materials the aircraft will be built out of and determine how they will be manufactured
Interests:
Gabe Smith: Systems Lead
Major: Aerospace Engineering
Year: Senior
Role: As the Systems lead, Gabe helps oversee all systems level management among sub-teams, and maintains records of the design process including requirements breakdowns and risk management.
Interests: Outside of MACH, Gabe enjoys seeing live music (especially metal and country), working out, playing video games, and participating in various shenanigans and tomfoolery.
Ananya Kedia: MDO Lead
Major: Aerospace Engineering
Year: Sophomore
Role: Ananya serves as the MDO team lead, which provides preliminary sizing among other specifications of our aircraft via the gradient-based optimization code developed in University of Michigan MDO Lab.
Interests: