Director and Principal Investigator

Vedhus Hoskere, Ph.D.
Assistant ProfessorCivil and Environmental Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering (Joint appointment)
PhD, Civil Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020
MS, Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020
MS, Civil Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016
BS, Civil Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore, India, 2014
Vedhus Hoskere joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Houston as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2020. His current research interests are highly interdisciplinary, at the intersection of civil engineering, computer science and robotics. His doctoral work at the University of Illinois with Billie F. Spencer Jr. focused on developing artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision solutions for rapid and automated civil infrastructure inspection and monitoring.
Graduate Students

Joshua Genova

Subin Varghese

Mary Bittar

Deepank Singh

Jasleen Kaur

Asad Rahman

Zainab Zikar

Abdul Wahid Mangi

Blessed Sungisai
Joshua Genova
BS, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2018
Joshua is an MSEE student with a focus in Robotics and Control. His research is about developing robotic systems for infrastructure maintenance. Joshua enjoy’s playing basketball and volleyball, social dancing, and cooking different kinds of foods for his friends and family.
Subin Varghese
BS, Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston, 2018
Subin Varghese joined the Masters in Science in Engineering data science program at the University of Houston in Fall 2020. Subin has professional experience as a field engineer in the petroleum industry, designed medical devices, and worked as a consultant in remote patient monitoring. His research interest is in the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in engineering and the medical field.
Mary Bittar
Mary Bittar is pursuing her Master’s of Science in Engineering Data Science at the University of Houston. She has previous internship experience as an ML/AI intern in tech consulting and as a chemical engineering R&D intern in the oil & gas industry. Her research interests center around deep learning and reinforcement learning in engineering applications. In her free time, she enjoys painting, sewing, or spending time outdoors.
Deepank Singh
Deepank completed his bachelor’s of technology in Civil Engineering from the National Institute of Technology in Jaipur, India. During his internships at IIT Delhi and IIT (BHU), he conducted research on machine learning and digital image processing applications in civil engineering. His research interests are in structural health monitoring and machine learning applications in structural engineering.
Jasleen Kaur
Jasleen Kaur is a master’s student in the University of Houston’s Mechanical Engineering department. She is pursuing a dual degree program in Aerospace Engineering and Space Architecture. Her interests focus on deep space colonization, intelligent structure systems, Astro materials, human factors, spacesuits, human-system integration, space physiology, artificial gravity, and human health countermeasures. With an aim to expand the human understanding of space, she aspires to solve space exploration problems that effectively utilize her multidisciplinary experience and expertise, including designing, operations, management, and leadership skills. Her objective is to put forward a diligent endeavor and conquer the heights in the chosen field of space exploration by contributing to the human research program (HRP) that has already commenced exploring the depths of a highly challenging field. She is currently working on identifying parameters for integrating the self-healing materials into inflatable structures for structural health monitoring.
Asad Rahman
Asad graduated from the National University of Sciences and Technology in Pakistan in 2020. Prior to coming to the University of Houston Asad conducted research on probabilistic seismic hazard assessment of structures. In his free time, Asad enjoys playing badminton.
Zainab Zikar
Zainab’s main focus is mechanical design and autonomous systems. After her bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, Zainab worked at NOV as a mechanical engineer for subsea systems, working on designing, testing and analyzing materials and prototypes of subsea blowout preventers. Zainab enjoys being challenged and learning new things.
Abdul Wahid Mangi
Wahid received his bachelors in Civil Engineering from Pakistan in 2019. He has research experience in the design, fabrication, and testing of civil infrastructure. After his bachelor’s degree, Wahid also worked in a web application and data integration company to streamline processes in geosensing-based infrastructure assessment.
Blessed Sungisai
Blessed is pursuing a master of science degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Controls and Robotics at the University of Houston. He received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 2018, and is currently working on research in developing robotic systems for infrastructure maintenance. Blessed holds 3 years of professional experience as a manufacturing process engineer.
Undergraduate Students

Pemu Utienyin
BS in Mechanical Engineering, Fall 2022
Gurvinder Rai
BS in Civil Engineering, Spring 2024Interested in joining SAIL? Visit our positions page to learn more. https://sail.cive.uh.edu/positions/