Dr. Makhin Thitsa

Dr. Makhin Thitsa received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 2005, her M.S in Electrical Engineering in 2008, and her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2011, all from Old Dominion University. She was then a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Old Dominion University until 2013, when she joined the faculty of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia as an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering.

She also holds a research affiliate position in Georgia Institute of Technology. She directs Cyber-physical Systems and Control Laboratory at Mercer University School of Engineering, and numerous students who have trained in her research lab have won prestigious research awards such as the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. Her students have also been selected for the MSRP research program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Education

• Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Old Dominion University
• M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Old Dominion University
• B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Old Dominion University

Specializations

Systems, Control, and Optimization

Professional Interests

Her research interests include nonlinear systems and control theory, model-free control, and data-driven control strategies. She has successfully applied control methods to photonic devices, unmanned aerial vehicles, and traffic flow networks. Her research is supported by government agencies such as Georgia Department of Transportation. Her research has attracted over $200,000 in external funding.

Recent Publications

• M. Thitsa, M. Clouatre, E. Verriest, S. Coogan and C. Martin, “A Numerically Stable Dynamic Mode Decomposition Algorithm for Nearly Defective Systems,” IEEE Control Systems Letters, vol. 5, 2021, pp. 67-72.
• M. Clouatre and M. Thitsa, “Data-driven Sliding Mode Control for Pulses of Fluorescence in STED Microscopy Based on Förster Resonance Energy Transfer Pairs”, MRS Advances, vol. 5, 2020, pp. 1557-1565.
• M. Clouatre and M. Thitsa, “Shaping 800 nm pulses of Yb/Tm co-doped laser: A control theoretic approach,” Ceramics International, vol. 46, 2020, pp. 26289-26294.
• B. Simon, J. Dupaty, E. Brown and M. Thitsa, “Model-free precision control of 808nm laser pulses” MRS Advances, vol. 4, 2019, pp. 683-688.
• M. Thitsa, B. Simon, and C. F. Martin, “Fliess series method for Riccati differential systems”, Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Miami Beach, Florida, December 2018.
• R. Cai, M. Thitsa, A. Bluiett, E. Brown, U. Hommerich, “Chirp-free Direct Modulation of 550nm Emission in Er3+-doped Fluoroindate Glass by Nonlinear Feedback Control”, Optical Materials , vol. 68, 2017, pp. 19-23.
• M. Thitsa and C. F. Martin, “Dynamic treatment regime: The mathematics of unstable switched systems” Communications in Information and Systems, vol. 16, 2017, pp.185-202.
• X. Xue, M. Thitsa, T. Cheng, W. Gao, D. Deng, T. Suzuki, and Y. Ohishi, “Laser power density dependent energy transfer between Tm3+ and Tb3+: tunable up-conversion emissions in NaY F4 : Tm3+,Tb3+,Y b3+ microcrystals”, Optics Express, vol. 24, 2016, pp. 26307-26321.
• M. Thitsa, S. Williams, and E. Verriest, “Formal power series method for nonlinear time delay systems with analytic initial data”, 54th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Osaka, Japan (2015), pp. 6478-6483.
• S. Gray, L. A. Duffaut Espinosa, and M. Thitsa,“Left Inversion of Analytic Nonlinear SISO Systems via Formal Power Series Methods,”Automatica, vol. 50, 2014, pp. 2381-2388.
• M. Thitsa and W. S. Gray, “On the Radius of Convergence of Interconnected Analytic Nonlinear Input-Output Systems,” SIAM Journal of Control and Optimization, vol. 50, 2012, pp. 2786-2813.
• S. Gray and M. Thitsa, “A Unified Approach to Generating Series for Cascaded Nonlinear Input-output Systems,” International Journal of Control, vol. 85, 2012, pp. 1737-1754.

Contact

478.301.2213
thitsa_m@mercer.edu
Office: Engineering Building 233F