Dozens of government, academic and aerospace industry leaders converged on Georgia Tech this week for the Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ASDL) annual External Advisory Board meeting, held April 28-29.

The two-day meeting featured presentations by AE graduate students that focused on some of the grand challenges facing the discipline and the world. Dressed to impress and ready to discuss details, the students spent Monday presenting their research on subjects ranging from gyrocopter-type airborne wind turbines to high bypass ratio engine integration.

See a complete list of the ASDL presentations.

Check out this slideshow from the ASDL EAB reception.

"A lot of the people who come are leaders in industry, so it says a lot for the quality of the ASDL presentations that they took the time out to attend. It's not easy to get this kind of time," said EAB co-chairman Dr. Gary Seng, a retired Chief at the NASA Glenn Research Center.

"I'd say a lot of them get revitalized by the presentations, because the students here are fully involved in studying the latest research. They give us new perspective."

EAB co-chairman, Bill Kimmel, a chief technologist at NASA's Langley Research Center, said that working with the students at ASDL was something of an investment in the future.

"These are very smart students, the future researchers that we'll see at NASA, so what we do is stretch them a little," he said.

"For instance, they might present one of the best projects in the world, but if the cost is too high, that project will have a hard time getting by the suits. So we ask them to think about lower cost options, not just the best-case scenario."