Parker Vascik Aerospace Engineering, Technology and Policy Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Parker Vascik is a doctoral student in Aerospace Systems Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is advised by Dr. John Hansman and his research focuses on systems analysis of urban air mobility and unmanned aircraft networks.

Parker’s dissertation introduces an airspace assessment tool that supports context-dependent system design for these emerging aviation operators and informs feasible service scale. Parker’s research also investigates approaches to significantly increase the number of small aircraft or helicopter operations at commercial airports and investigates the development of small footprint, high throughput heliport infrastructure. His contributions to the research field include fifteen technical papers, over a dozen invited presentations, and support of the Uber white paper on urban air mobility. Parker previously worked with NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) program, Rolls-Royce North America, and consulted for a variety of startups, aviation firms, and state governments.

Parker received dual master’s degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Technology & Policy from MIT. He earned his aerospace engineering bachelor’s degree from Georgia Tech. Parker was awarded the 2018 Dr. Jing Yen Vertical Flight Foundation Award by the American Helicopter Society. He also received the 2018 Airport Cooperative Research Program graduate research award and the 2016 Brian Mar best student paper award from the International Council on Systems Engineering. Parker was the 2014 MIT Zakhartchenko Fellow, a NASA Aeronautics Scholar from 2012 to 2016, and a Stamps President’s Scholar at Georgia Tech.