Hi, I'm Mehrnaz.

My Story

I’ve always been drawn to building technology with transformative purpose. When commercial drones were barely a thing, I saw them as the convergence of everything I was passionate about: intelligence, systems, and flight. I acted before the field was ready. I pitched what sounded like an impossible idea to my mentor at UW, a distributed aerial system for search-and-rescue. To test my resolve, I was given an impossible deadline: three months, or drop it. I delivered the first working system in two months. It went on to win six awards, but more importantly, that experience taught me something foundational about myself: when I have a clear vision of something transformative, I am willing to push far beyond comfort, convention, or expectation to make it real.

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That mindset shaped every step that followed. I pursued a PhD not to stay in academia, but to learn how to build complex systems with rigor instead of guesswork. When the pandemic shut down physical experimentation, I didn’t slow down or change direction; I built the infrastructure I needed. I designed a simulation system to keep testing and learning moving forward, and in doing so learned how to maintain momentum even when conditions are far from ideal.

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I later saw firsthand that the industry lacked the infrastructure needed to test emerging systems and support reliable, large-scale aerial traffic that is needed in future airspace. I took on that challenge by proposing and leading a NASA-funded effort to build AI-enabled traffic management for assured aerial autonomy, including tactical deconfliction and large-scale, real-time simulation infrastructure. Technologically, this meant tackling problems the industry had largely avoided: distributed coordination under latency, real-time validation at scale, and systems that could be tested rigorously without risking the physical world.

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None of this happened with institutional abundance or ready-made infrastructure. I assembled teams without lab space, hand-carried equipment and hardware across sites, negotiated field access and partnerships, and built the system while constantly improvising around constraints. I sought compute where none was available, earned access through competitive programs, and reinvested everything into making the work move forward. Recognition was never the goal. Execution was.

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Today, I’ve led a NASA-funded project from concept to real-world demonstrations, built partnerships across government and industry, and validated technology that addresses some of the hardest challenges facing autonomous systems. My vision has always been grounded in everyday reality. I want autonomy to be something people trust without thinking about it, drones operating safely over cities, self-driving cars driving seamlessly in shared spaces, robots working alongside humans where it matters most. I’m motivated by the long arc: choosing hard problems, committing fully, and pushing until systems that once felt unrealistic become part of normal life. That’s how I work, and that’s the standard I hold myself to.