5/1/2024 Debra Levey Larson
Written by Debra Levey Larson
Hamza El-Kebir has already shown himself to be a rising star in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. He is now being recognized on a bigger stage. El-Kebir was named as one of the 2024 CPS Rising Stars—an annual program designed to identify and mentor outstanding Ph.D. students and postdocs who are interested in pursuing academic careers in Cyber-Physical Systems related areas. The recognition includes an invitation to participate in a workshop next month at the University of Virginia Charlottesville.
“Originally, I specialized in control theory and computational thermodynamics, making significant strides in interdisciplinary research,” El-Kebir said. “Recently, I pivoted from aerospace engineering applications to biomedical engineering, using control theory and physical modeling to develop quantitative methods for medical diagnosis and patient-specific treatment. This transition was driven by a deep desire to combat cancer and ethical opposition to dual use technologies.”
El-Kebir said his current work focuses on minimally invasive autonomous robotic surgery with strong safety guarantees and adaptation to patient-specific conditions, inspired by his earlier research in fault detection and recovery and safe autonomous control.
El-Kebir has co-written 20 published research papers.
At Illinois, El-Kebir was awarded a Mavis Future Faculty Fellowship in 2022. It is a program created to help develop skills to become successful in an academic setting. As a Mavis Fellow, El-Kebir participated in the MF3 Academy, which is a unique program designed to prepare the next generation of engineering professors.
In 2021, El-Kebir was the winning team’s graduate student lead for the Lunar Entry and Approach Platform for Research on Ground competition. The LEAPFROG challenge is funded by NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges Program.
Prior to that, when he was an undergraduate at Delft University of Technology on a semester study abroad, El-Kebir conducted research with AE Professor Melkior Ornik. The research resulted in an algorithm to run in-flight, onboard the vehicle and estimate what the atmosphere outside is like. He has also written a paper with Ornik that is published in the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics’ 2021 Proceedings of the Conference on Control and its Applications—a precursor to his current research.