Dr. Yalin is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University. He joined in 2002.
Dr. Yalin received his undergraduate degree in engineering physics from Queen’s University in 1995, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University in 1997 and 2000 respectively, and held a post-doctoral position at Stanford University from 2000-2002.
At CSU, he serves as the director of the Center for Laser Sensing and Diagnostics which includes approximately 10 students researchers. He is also the director of the CSU NASA Space Grant program.
Ryan joined CLSD in the spring of 2025 after completing his PhD at Iowa State University in 2024 in mechanical engineering with a focus on droplet-wall impact phenomena and fuel vaporization to inform numerical simulations. His current research focus at CLSD is on using CARS/PARS laser diagnostic techniques to sense trace amounts of hydrogen gas for industrial emissions detection applications.
Matteo joined CLSD in the spring of 2025 after working on his doctoral research at the University of Siena, in collaboration with Aerospazio Tecnologie. His work focused on applying laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) to study neutral and ion species in Hall thrusters, aiming to investigate acceleration dynamics and plasma behavior. At CLSD, he is now using LIF to examine molecular nitrogen plasmas, aiming to better understand thruster-relevant molecular plasmas and sources.
Parneeth joined CLSD as a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK). During his master’s he worked at the Combustion and Flame Dynamics Lab at IITK to study and investigate the exhaust emissions from a gas turbine engine. Currently, Parneeth is working on developing a Filtered Rayleigh Scattering diagnostic to study laser-plasma ignition.
Brian joined CLSD in the fall of 2023 as part of his undergraduate research practicum. He is working on the experimental setup of an ammonia plasma reformer utilizing cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) to measure the NH₂ fuel radical.
Jon joined CLSD in the fall of 2023 as part of his Undergraduate Research Practicum. He is working an experimental setup using two-photon laser induced fluorescence (TALIF) to measure neutral particle densities in cathodes and Hall Thrusters, including temporally resolved measurements.
Mitchell joined the group in the summer of 2024 via the NASA Space Grant and is beginning his Undergraduate Research Practicum student in the fall of 2024. He will focuses on laser measurements of molecular plasmas for propulsion applications.
Nicolas joined CLSD in the fall of 2025 after graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a background in spacecraft electric propulsion (via BSAE). His current research seeks to advance the use of laser Thomson scattering for basic plasma studies of EP relevant devices as well as to better evaluate plasma technology performance.
Michael is a Physics major at CSU who is contributing to CLSD on various projects. He is currently focused on getting a CO2 Laser demonstration up and running.
Austin joined the CLSD in Fall 2025 as part of his Undergraduate Research Practicum. His work focuses on the development and testing of a modular Raman cell and inlet sampling systems for laser-based diagnostics of hydrogen emissions.
Luke joined the CLSD in Fall 2024 via the NASA Space Grant and began his Undergraduate Research Practicum in Fall 2025. His work is focused on hardware and spectroscopic developments for electric propulsion applications.
Vatey joined the CLSD in Fall 2025. She is a Mechanical Engineering major (Aerospace concentration) and a Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Scholar. She is working on photoacoustic Raman spectroscopy for detection of trace hydrogen gas.
Research Scientists and Post-Doctoral Researchers
Ph.D.
M.S.
