For the first time, two scholars from UC Santa Barbara’s Robert Mehrabian College of Engineering have received the prestigious Winifred and Louis Lancaster Dissertation Award in the same year, marking a milestone for the college and highlighting research with far-reaching implications for artificial intelligence, workforce transformation, and the future of human-machine systems.

Presented annually by the UCSB Graduate Division, the Lancaster Award recognizes dissertations that make significant methodological contributions to their fields. This year’s recipients are Alexander “Sasha” Davydov, who completed his PhD in mechanical engineering in 2025, and Sienna Helena Parker, a PhD candidate in the Technology Management Department.

“I am delighted to congratulate Sasha Davydov and Sienna Helena Parker on receiving this prestigious recognition,” said Umesh Mishra, dean of The Robert Mehrabian College of Engineering. “Their achievements reflect not only the extraordinary quality of their individual scholarship, but also the breadth and depth of research taking place across our college. From advancing the mathematical foundations of safe and reliable engineering systems to examining how technology is reshaping work and society, their dissertations demonstrate the kind of rigorous, impactful research that defines engineering at UCSB.”

Advised by mechanical engineering professor Francesco Bullo, Davydov received the award in mathematics, physical sciences and engineering for his dissertation, “Contraction Theory in Control, Learning, and Optimization.”  Davydov said that the honor was extremely meaningful.

“It felt great to get the news that I was awarded the Lancaster for my dissertation,” he said. “The dissertation is the culmination of my years at UCSB and my research over that time.”

His work is rooted in control theory, an interdisciplinary field of engineering concerned with shaping the behavior of dynamic systems through feedback. As Davydov explains, control theory is “the underlying technology enabling automatic cruise control, temperature control in buildings, autopilot in airplanes, and other technologies we take for granted.”

Central to his dissertation is contraction theory, which Davydov described as “essentially a robust notion of stability” that offers “many useful corollaries for physical engineering systems.” He first encountered the topic during a special-topics course taught by Bullo. A final project for that course led him to a missing mathematical connection in the theory, one he found in a 1961 mathematics paper, and that became the foundation for his first journal paper at UCSB.

“After that, I was hooked, and I spent the rest of my time at UCSB working on this topic,” Davydov said.

In practical terms, contraction theory helps researchers understand whether complex systems will converge toward reliable behavior, even when they face uncertainty, disturbances, or changing conditions. Davydov’s dissertation extends those ideas across control, learning, and optimization, with potential applications in autonomous systems, robotics, machine learning, and other technologies that must operate safely, and predictably in the real world.

“In terms of my research goals, I am interested in developing theory that enables the reliable control of physical engineering systems,” Davydov said. “Many physical systems extend beyond our current capabilities to analyze mathematically. I hope to bring new tools from control theory, optimization theory, and machine learning to better understand them and design strategies for them to operate safely and reliably.”

Davydov is now an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Rice University, where he continues to pursue research in the reliable control of engineering systems. 

While Davydov’s research focuses on the reliability of engineering systems, in Parker’s dissertation, she examines the human side of technological change, how older workers navigate new forms of work, retirement, and economic uncertainty in the platform economy. Advised by technology management professor and chair Paul Leonardi, Parker earned the social sciences award for her dissertation, titled “Retiring From, Working Through: Retirement–Work Orientations and Organizing Later-Life Careers on an Online Labor Platform.” 

Parker said that she was elated to learn that she had received the Lancaster Award, and was grateful to share the news in person with fellow PhD students.

“I feel so honored to have this recognition, especially to have been considered alongside what I know were many other great dissertations,” she said.

Her research grew out of longstanding interests in aging, work, and technology. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, Parker became fascinated by development later in life, and by the reality that populations around the world are aging in new ways. After working in technology companies for a few years in San Francisco, she began asking how emerging technologies were changing the way people work. Those curiosities led her to pursue a PhD in technology management at UCSB.

For her dissertation, Parker studied whether flexible, platform-based freelancing could open new possibilities for later-life work, particularly as more older adults need, or want, to continue working despite limited options in formal employment.

“I care deeply about understanding how work could be better organized, how organizations and technologies can support workers, and, more broadly, how we, as a society, can move toward a more dignified existence for people of all ages,” Parker said.

The real-world stakes of her research are significant. As work continues to change, Parker’s scholarship points to the need for technologies, organizations, and policies that support workers across the life course, rather than deepening inequality, or insecurity.

“As a qualitative researcher, I want to produce knowledge grounded in the perspectives of the people who are actually doing the work and bring to light what they care about, what they hope for, and what constrains them,” Parker said. “My hope is that this kind of research can help move us in directions that reduce, rather than exacerbate, inequality and insecurity as work continues to change.”

Parker will move to the United Kingdom in July to join the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School as an assistant professor in organizational theory and information systems. Her immediate plans include developing her dissertation chapters into journal articles, while also translating insights into forms useful to practitioners, workers, and organizations.

Established in honor of Winifred and Louis Lancaster, the annual dissertation awards recognize two doctoral-degree recipients, or candidates, from a broad, rotating group of academic areas. Recipients are selected for dissertations deemed to have significant impact on their fields.