Professor Atkins' research program focuses on the integration of strategic and tactical planning and optimization algorithms to enable robust, autonomous aircraft and spacecraft flight in the presence of system failures and environmental uncertainties. Onboard automation must enhance performance while maintaining safe long-term operation robust to unexpected or failure scenarios. Mission and trajectory planners must yield acceptable low-cost solutions for single vehicles or coordinated teams operating nominally or, worst-case, in unfriendly, uncertain environments with degraded performance characteristics. Researchers have begun to speak of humans "on the loop" rather than "in the loop". Under this paradigm, humans are the mission managers and theatre commanders supported by an array of computational tools. These tools must acquire and accurately summarize mission-critical information for human supervisors while providing the underlying infrastructure that plans and executes missions in accordance with specified high-level directives. Hardware-based demonstration of single-vehicle and collaborative systems is a key component of Dr. Atkins' research. Current platforms include the Solus UAV and a planetary surface rover (see illustrations). Dr. Atkins is author of over 60 archival and conference publications and serves as an associate editor for the AIAA Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication (JACIC). She is a technical program chair for the AIAA Infotech@Aerospace conference and has served on several review boards and panels. She is chair-elect of the AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Committee, an Associate Fellow of AIAA, a member of AAAI and IEEE, and a private pilot (ASEL).