Previous to UCF, Dr. Vela served as Technical Staff at MIT Lincoln Lab. His primary research interest involves the modeling and simulation of stochastic dynamic processes through the use of big-data. More importantly, his work seeks to exploit big-data models to improve system performance through optimization and predictive analytics. His previous research efforts include aircraft blunder and anomaly detection systems; next-generation collision avoidance systems; safety analysis of NextGen concepts; and agent-based simulations. Of late, Dr. Vela’s research projects have grown to include applying big-data techniques in education, taxi demand modeling, and human-robot teaming.