Dr. Julie Parish currently leads the Autonomy for Hypersonics department at Sandia National Labs, where she has worked in flight system research and development for nearly a decade. In her current role, Dr. Parish serves as the Campaign Manager for the Autonomy for Hypersonics, or A4H, Mission Campaign, a large, multi-year Lab-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) portfolio. She also leads AutonomyNM, an initiative to foster collaboration between Sandia and national research partners that includes university collaborations, a new unmanned systems experimental facility, and a large student internship program.
Her previous position as a Principal Member of Technical Staff included roles such as Principal Investigator of several Lab-Directed R&D projects in hypersonic vehicle guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) and as Technical Lead for development and testing of flight mission subsystems. In these dual roles, Dr. Parish was able to leverage several of her LDRD research efforts for implementation in high-impact national security missions. In her work supporting prototype vehicle flight experiments, Dr. Parish has served as Trajectory Generation Lead, Boost Guidance Lead, Attitude Control System Lead, and Navigation Subsystem Test Lead. Most recently, she was a member of the Navy Flight Experiment 2 Design and Test Team that received the prestigious U.S. Department of Energy Secretary of Energy Achievement Award for their accomplishments in 2020.
Prior to her tenure at Sandia National Labs, Dr. Parish completed her aerospace engineering graduate studies in dynamics, control, and estimation at Texas A&M University. Dr. Parish is active in the professional research community and has served on the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Technical Committee (TC) for over ten years. In 2020, she was selected to serve as TC Secretary, and she led TC conference efforts as the GN&C Technical Discipline Chair for the 2021 AIAA SciTech Forum. Dr. Parish also serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, with a focus on hypersonic vehicle flight mechanics and GN&C technologies.