The Eshelby Mechanics Award was established in 2012 in memory of Professor John Douglas Eshelby to promote the field of mechanics, among young researchers. The award will be formally presented at the 2026 Applied Mechanics Division Awards Banquet during the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in November.

Athanasiou and his team advance the fundamental mechanics and physics of materials and translates these insights into systems-level design strategies that address global challenges in resource efficiency and sustainable development. His research integrates advanced experimental methods capable of capturing material behavior under realistic operational conditions, mechanics-based design principles, and tailored AI- and physics-informed modeling frameworks.

Together, these efforts enable the development of life-cycle-efficient, cost-effective materials and structures for applications ranging from sustainable packaging to aerospace systems and space construction. His recent work published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) introduced a bioinspired framework to improve plastic recycling while addressing a foundational mechanics question: how can we build reliable structures from inherently variable materials?

Athanasiou is also the recipient of the 2024 NSF CAREER Award and the ASME Orr Early Career Award, and is a Climate Tech Fellow at the New York Climate Exchange.

The four-year $6.7 million Safety Aware Learning Assured Autonomy for Aviation project will be headed up by Hever Moncayo from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and include collaborations with Georgia Tech, the University of Texas, Arlington, the University of Southern California, and Collins Aerospace. 

“I’m thrilled to join forces and combine our multifaceted expertise to enhance the safety of Advanced Air Mobility vehicles. Our research is paving the way to make them a reality,” Vamvoudakis stated. “This ULI will bring together experts from academia and industry to speed up progress in aviation safety, improve the reliability and autonomy of future air mobility, and facilitate the integration of autonomous safety systems into commercial and regulatory standards.”

The project will investigate the significant knowledge gaps that have slowed down the national airspace’s use of AAM vehicles such as drones and air taxis. Vamvoudakis and his team will create smart safety system software that can learn independently. This system will help monitor, manage, and control these vehicles safely and reliably. It will also produce national safety guidelines to ensure the vehicles follow safe flight paths and make harmless decisions based on their own learning. Additionally, they will allow vehicles to autonomously adjust their own actions to ensure safety within specific operational limits. The idea is that future AAM vehicles will use smart, non-traditional components to stay safe and perform well, even in unexpected situations and emergencies. Establishing an intelligent system that can diagnose and predict issues independently will be crucial. This system will help ensure these vehicles meet their mission goals safely, despite challenges like unpredictable environments.

This ULI research effort will support the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s (ARMD) outcome for 2020-2035: Initial safe and efficient integration of highly automated vehicles into the National Airspace System (NAS) by introducing aviation systems with bounded autonomy, capable of carrying out function-level goals.

This is Vamvoudakis’ second ULI. He is a part of the Safe and Secure Autonomy Project that is still active.

Co-Pis: K. Merve Dogan, Maj Mirmirani, and Victor Fraticelli (Embry Riddle Aeronautical University), Kyriakos G. Vamvoudakis (Georgia Institute of Technology), Nicholas Gans and Yijing Xie (University of Texas, Arlington), Petros Ioannou (University of Southern California), and Kevin Kronfeld (Collins Aerospace) will play a crucial role in this collaborative effort.
 

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), led by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, was the first full-scale kinetic deflection mission to test how kinetic deflection could effectively push an asteroid measuring 150 meters in diameter. The 580-kg spacecraft (impactor) collided with the target asteroid, Dimorphos, at a speed of 6.1 km/second on September 26, 2022, making the target’s speed 2.7 mm/s. This speed change could gradually make the course deviate from the original one. The more time that elapses after impact, the further it moves away from the Earth. Even though Dimorphos was not a threat before the impact, it was chosen as a test target for DART’s kinetic deflection test.

Georgia Tech Professor Masatoshi Hirabayashi’s critical contribution to DART was recently published in Nature Communications. The study, “Elliptical ejecta of asteroid Dimorphos is due to its surface curvature” analyzed the behavior of fragments coming out by the high-speed DART impact and their push of the asteroid. This work was in collaboration with Professor Fabio Ferrari from Politecnico di Milano, who jointly published the study, “Morphology of ejecta features from the impact on asteroid Dimorphos.”  

Imagine a cannonball flying through the air and hitting a concrete wall. The wall shutters and fragmented pieces disperse at high speeds. Those smaller fragments, called ejecta, are known to be a key factor in controlling the asteroid push.

The study found that the ejecta from the impact site on Dimorphos highly depends on the asteroid’s shape. As a rule of thumb, a cannonball hitting a flat concrete wall creates ejecta departing from the wall at an angle of about 45 degrees from the wall’s surface. The cloud of ejecta thus looks like a waffle cone. However, if the concrete wall’s surface is tilted against the impact direction, the fragment ejection changes, making the ejecta structure differ even if the impactor has the same mass and speed. 

“This changes the asteroid push dramatically. Dimorphos has a squashed round shape, like an M&M,” Hirabayashi explained, “If the impact is large, more ejecta fly out of the surface but are more affected by surface tilts. This process makes the ejecta deviate from the ideal direction, reducing the asteroid push.” 

For the DART impact on Dimorphos, the study identified the impact scale and the asteroid’s rounded surface lowered the asteroid push by 56% compared to when Dimorphos was tested as an entirely flat wall. Thus, sending a large impactor does not mean a big push, and considering how to send impactors strategically is necessary. One way to keep the asteroid push effective is to send multiple small impactors rather than a single large impactor. This way, each small impactor may avoid the target’s rounded shape, and the net asteroid push by multiple impacts can be more efficient than the single impactor.

Ferrari’s study offered crucial information for Hirabayashi’s conclusions. “We used Hubble Space Telescope’s images and numerical simulations to quantify a viable mechanism of the ejecta evolution and successfully estimated ejected particles’ mass, velocity, and size. We also found complex interactions of such particles with the asteroid system and solar radiation pressure, i.e., sunlight pushing ejecta particles,” Ferrari said. “Documenting how ejecta looks over time offers crucial insights into how the DART impact acted on ejecta, giving tight constraints on the target asteroid’s properties.”

NASA’s DART mission was a success, and Hirabayashi’s study discovered an innovative approach to kinetic deflection, offering new potential for its future demonstration in space. He is building a new capability of characterizing a target’s properties beneficial for planetary defense, such as mass, size, composition, etc., at limited observational conditions. This is aligned with the fast reconnaissance concept, a new community effort that develops planetary defense strategies to identify these properties within a limited time and resources. This work continues to evolve Georgia Tech into a key player in planetary defense, connecting international communities. 
 

A recent study by Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering Associate Professor Kai James, Lee Alacoque, and Richard Bulliet analyzes the wheels’ invention and its evolution. Their analysis supports a new theory that copper miners from the Carpathian Mountains in southeastern Europe may have invented the wheel. However, the study also recognizes that the wheel’s evolution occurred incrementally over time — and likely through considerable trial and error. The findings suggest that the original developers of the wheel benefited from uniquely favorable environmental conditions that augmented their human ingenuity. The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, has gained the worldwide attention of experts and more than 58 media outlets, including  Popular Mechanics, Interesting Engineering, and National Geographic en Español. 

“The way technology evolves is very complex. It's never as simple as somebody having an epiphany, going to their lab, drawing up a perfect prototype, and manufacturing it — and then end of story,” said James. “The evidence, even before our theory, suggests that the wheel evolved over centuries, across a very broad geographical range, with contributions from many different people, and that's true of all engineering systems. Understanding this complexity and seeing the process as a journey, rather than a moment in time, is one of the main outcomes of our study.” 

Necessity Is the Mother of Invention

In 3900 B.C., the Neolithic copper miners from the Carpathian Mountains lacked written language, and they were not advanced mathematically or scientifically. However, they discovered the wheel as a means to an end.

Recently, archeologists uncovered a series of small drinking mugs that rolled on wheels. There were features on the mugs, like wickerwork patterns, indicative of woven basketry used by miners around 3900 B.C. These replicas represent the earliest known depictions of wheeled transport.

Tools of Engagement

James and his team use computational analysis and design as a forensic tool to learn about the past, studying engineered systems designed by prehistoric people. Computational analysis offers a deeper understanding of how these systems were created. 

“We have to interpret clues from ancient societies without a writing system — artifacts like bows and arrows, flutes, or boats — but we need to use additional tools to do this,” James explained. “Carbon dating tells us when, but it doesn't tell us how or why. Using solid mechanics and computational modeling to recreate these environments and scenarios that gave rise to these technologies is a potential game-changer.”

Their theory suggests that the wheel evolved from simple rollers, which took the form of a series of untethered cylinders, poles, or tree trunks. These rollers were arranged side-by-side in a row on the ground, and the workers would transport their cargo on top of the rollers to avoid the friction caused by dragging. 
“Over time, the shape of these rollers evolved such that the central portion of the cylinder grew progressively narrower, eventually leaving only a slender axle capped on either end by round discs, which we now refer to as wheels,” James explained.

The researchers derived a series of mathematical equations that describe the physics of the rollers. They then created a computer algorithm that simulates the progression from roller to wheel-and-axle by repeatedly solving these equations.  

“Our investigation also indicates that environmental conditions played a key role in this evolutionary process,” he said. “Previous studies have shown that rollers are only effective under very specific circumstances.  They require flat, firm, and level terrain, as well as a straight path.  Neolithic mines, with their human-made tunnels and covered terrain would have offered an environment highly conducive to roller-based transport.”

The research was funded by National Science Foundation grant # 2311078.

Citation: Alacoque, L. R., Bulliet, R. W., & James, K. A. (2024). Reconstructing the invention of the wheel using computational structural analysis and Design. Royal Society Open Science, 11(10). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.240373 

Other Research on the Horizon

James’ research group is currently working to create algorithms to design aircraft structures for crashworthiness, focusing on helicopters. He uses these algorithms to design vehicles that can withstand impact with minimal structural damage and minimal passenger injury.

He is also designing 3D-printed morphing mechanisms.  These mechanisms contain active materials that change shape in response to heating.  By systematically combining active and passive materials in a precise spatial arrangement, James’ group is able to encode specific motions into the material layout. In this way, they create specialized mechanisms that transform into pre-programmed shapes upon being submerged in a heated water bath.

Vamvoudakis received $400,000 from the National Science Foundation for his proposal, “Improving Safety by Synthesizing Interacting Model-based and Model-free Learning Approaches.” This is the first grant on Safe Learning-enabled Systems (SLES) awarded to Georgia Tech from NSF. He and his team will establish a framework that leads to the design and implementation of SLES in which safety is ensured with high confidence levels. The framework will leverage tools from control theory, multi-agent autonomy, and formal methods for rigorously probabilistic reasoning to create safe learning-enabled systems. Before anyone releases an autonomous machine, the public expects it to be safe for those around it. For example, sensors in drones and other machines are sensitive to infiltration, malfunction, and the environment. If the wind is strong, the drone would need to be able to adjust to the environment, stay on course, and perhaps change altitude. If the drone encounters a telephone pole or even a person in its path, it would be able to adjust accordingly without waiting for human control. 

His research approach will take elements from various theories and combine them to improve the safety of these LES within the machine.

“Our approach algorithmically combines model-based and model-free reinforcement learning for enhancing safety by using the learned model to predict how well a safe policy will behave and then update the resulting actions,” Vamvoudakis explained. “As a result, our approach does not rely on improving the model and does not require an infinite amount of time for convergence. Instead, our plan optimally enhances safety and combines the predefined time-convergent actions generated to achieve high performance in the specified task.”

The fundamental knowledge created in his research could inform how future-assured autonomous systems with embodied intelligence can be built. Their results could inform the design of key enablers of the global economy, including smart and connected cities, networked actions of smart and autonomous systems by enabling system flexibility, efficiency, and capacity, and automated financial trading, such as creating automated news digests around finance.

Gaming Strategies Inform Military LES Frameworks

Autonomous machines are changing the way that the military operates. Uncrewed battles between autonomous systems require the systems to learn and adapt to unknown environments and to distinguish allies from enemies. Learning-enabled systems are trained to take the circumstances at hand and give recommendations for the desired response.

When humans have control over these machines, this is considered humans in the loop. When humans move further into the background and give the machines decision-making autonomy, it is called humans on the loop. Humans would still have oversight, but the machine could ultimately decide without human approval.

Through his newly awarded $480,000 project “Embodied and Secure Physical Intelligence with Possible Humans-on-the Loop in Complex Adaptive Systems” with the Army Research Office (ARO), Vamvoudakis and his team are developing decision-making algorithms to assist during conflict in adversarial environments. This is needed because military maneuvers can be unpredictable, and autonomous machines need to be able to adapt accordingly. He will use game-theoretic strategies to inform his work.

Vamvoudakis’ team has created algorithms in the context of games, where a “defender” wants to regulate a cyber-physical system around a trimming point, but an “attacker” intends to disrupt this regulation as much as possible.

They also employed level-k thinking to capture the behavior of the attacker. Particularly, instead of assuming that the attacker can reason perfectly about the behavior of the defender, the employed level-k thinking model imposed that the attacker can only make finitely-many (though arbitrarily many) steps of reasoning about what the defender might do, how the attacker can best respond to that, how the defender can then best respond. 

The project is a continuation of his ARO YIP award that developed a way to understand different types of attackers in a unified framework. Attackers who think a little ahead are called low-level, while those who think more strategically, like those near a Nash equilibrium, are called high-level. This understanding helps create better defense strategies without assuming that attackers always act perfectly. 

To demonstrate how this model works in real military situations, he and his students looked at it through the lens of a pursuit-evasion game. They found that using level-k thinking to understand and respond to attackers is more effective than assuming attackers always optimize their strategies perfectly.

MathWorks Gift to Enhance Learning for Artificial Intelligence

Current methods for protecting closed-loop reinforcement learning systems (artificial intelligence where the system continuously learns and adapts based on feedback from the environment) don't work well against potential threats. These existing methods often rely on guesswork, need a deep understanding of the system, and require a lot of training time. They also fail to guarantee safety when facing adversaries. 

Vamvoudakis’ MathWorks gift, “Adversarial Reinforcement Learning” aims to create a new generation of smart, flexible, autonomous systems that can learn and adapt. This is the first-ever gift from MathWorks made to Georgia Tech. 

“We will develop the next generation of agile, highly adaptive autonomous systems that use mechanisms from cognition and learning to process information from distributed sensors. In particular, looking to autonomous systems appearing in nature for inspiration,” he said. Specifically, behavioral scientists have validated the need for intermittent data sharing in learning tasks. They have shown that the central nervous system in human beings minimizes effort and sorts through impulses and stimuli by maintaining intermittent signaling. Specifically, the spinal cord transmits a channel of information and effectively exploits its neural resources via intermittent strategies to produce a sequence of muscle-bone interactions that induce movement.”

By looking to such ideas, they will develop safe and strong reinforcement learning methods to handle teamwork, assign tasks, and manage resources effectively. They will also collaborate with MathWorks to create useful toolboxes and provide internship opportunities.

The DART mission targeted the binary asteroid system where Dimorphos (the smaller secondary) orbits Didymos (the larger primary), to intentionally cause a spacecraft crash on Dimorphos. The collision, which occurred on September 26, 2022, was the first to demonstrate asteroid deflection by changing the asteroid's motion in space through kinetic impact. Astronomers monitored this event using ground- and space-based telescopes like the Hubble Telescope (HST). A recent Nature article, “Ejecta, From the DART-Produced Active Asteroid Dimorphos,” on which Hirabayashi is a co-author, documented HST’s detailed observations of the intense dust ejection generated by the impact. 

The Hera mission, launching in October 2024, will analyze the post-DART impact conditions of Didymos and Dimorphos by performing remote sensing observations and employing two CubeSats from its parent spacecraft, Hera. Hera will arrive at the asteroid in 2026. The Planetary Science Journal article, “The ESA Hera Mission: Detailed Characterization of the DART Impact Outcome and the Binary Asteroid Didymos, highlights the project's developments. 

Planetary defense is the primary reason for studying near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), particularly potentially hazardous objects (PHOs). While Didymos does not threaten the Earth, scientists want to prepare for the possibility that PHOs could hit the planet. Hera mission researchers can learn valuable information about the system's impact behavior. 

Hirabayashi, a co-investigator for the DART mission, said, “I was thrilled to apply my experience in the DART mission, and I’m honored to now be part of the Hera mission.” 

Specifically, Hirabayashi will analyze the mutual motion of the two asteroids in the Didymos binary system and provide detailed forecasts of the asteroids’ locations and velocities. During this investigation, he will use Georgia Tech’s high-performance computing system, Partnership for an Advanced Computing Environment (PACE). His results will also be used to quantify the system's post-DART impact behavior and develop new knowledge about planetary defense. 

“Dinosaurs were completely wiped out by an asteroid about 66 million years ago. There are many possible threats, and we need the capability to defend the Earth properly,” Hirabayashi explained. “Such capability includes performing detailed potential risk assessment in a limited time span and, if necessary, deflecting and disrupting PHOs with proper measurements.” 

Hirabayashi joined Georgia Tech in August 2023. His research concentration is in space operations, celestial mechanics, planetary science, and design and navigation. He works across the campus to explore lunar science at Georgia Tech’s Center for Lunar Environment and Volatile Exploration, one of the NASA/SSERVI nodes led by Thom Orlando in the College of Science’s School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. 

From a mission control bunker in the Mojave Desert on Jan. 6, the Yellow Jacket Space Program (YJSP) crew prepared to witness the culmination of five years of work as the countdown began to launch of their subscale liquid-fueled rocket. 

At this moment, all of the test fires, the diagnostic checks, and preparations for launch provided little comfort to the crew, especially mission control operator Anthony Otlowski, knowing what was at stake and how quickly it could all fall apart. 

"My hands leave the keyboard, and I'm thinking, 'There are a million different ways this could go wrong.' Our valves couldn't open, we could lose communication and the vehicle could half-fire, or the engine could hard-start and we blow everything up," he said, recalling initiating the launch sequence. "Just the amount of emotions going through my head as I clicked the button and gave the countdown, it was hard to keep a straight face and give everybody a clear picture of what was happening."

Even getting to this point was an accomplishment for a club that began in 2015 as what co-chief engineer Rithvik Nagarajan described as "a raggedy bunch of students who just wanted to test an engine." Now 250 members strong, the club is trying to become the first collegiate team to reach space.

Read the rest of the story here. 

Now, Smith is preparing to wrap up one chapter of his life at this weekend’s Commencement ceremony, and begin a new one in Seattle, Washington, at SpaceX as an ion propulsion test engineer.

As he looks forward to “celebrating everything that my friends and I have been through and achieved,” he takes a moment to reflect on how far he’s come. “Georgia Tech was everything I expected and more,” he said. “It was just as difficult as I anticipated, but people were so incredibly supportive and collaborative that I never felt like I was alone on this journey.”

Along the way, Smith seized opportunities outside of the classroom and the lab, from being a member of the men’s rowing team to promoting LGBTQ representation in the engineering sector. “I try to make any team I'm on a safe space for all identities, realizing that a strong team is a diverse team,” he said. One opportunity that eluded Smith as an undergraduate was study abroad. He’d signed up for the Aerospace India program for Summer 2020, but Covid-19 made it impossible.

Still, he credits Tech with “pushing me to my academic limits and making me extremely resilient.” Just as importantly, he said, “I feel like I have the context I need about every corner of the aerospace industry to know exactly what I want to pursue and how to do it successfully.”

And, as many graduating seniors do, Smith has advice for students just beginning their own Georgia Tech journeys. “Have fun. Tech is tough, but going through it alone is tougher,” he said. “Our time at the Institute really isn't that long, so I urge you to enjoy it and make as many friends as you can here. The students at Tech are some of the brightest people I've met in my life, and I've only been enriched by spending time with them and learning as much as I can from them.”

In August, Georgia Tech’s Lunar Flashlight team received news that was both exhilarating and daunting. Their briefcase-sized satellite was catching a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in late November, four months ahead of schedule.

Suddenly the team of researchers and students found themselves ramping up preparations for a journey to the moon in search of frozen water at the lunar south pole.

Those preparations are now complete. Launch week has arrived, with liftoff scheduled for the early morning hours of Nov. 30.

About an hour after launch, Georgia Tech's team will get to work. They'll begin communicating with Lunar Flashlight after it is ejected into space. Over the course of the next few days, the aerospace engineering students will check systems, run through scheduled propulsion burns, and put the CubeSat on a path for the moon. 

Read the entire story, which runs through the series of critical steps the students will make for their mission to the moon.

“We practice for big races like this every weekend in the Burger Bowl, and put in countless hours in our simulator,” said Tanner Beard, a mechanical engineering major and vice president of racing for RotorJackets. The simulator, called Velocidrone, is run on participants’ personal computers with their controllers.

Beard was joined at the Drone Racing Championship by teammates Matt Kelsey, a computer science major; and Luke Lawver, an aerospace engineering major; with contributions from teammate Jordan Moss, an electrical engineering major. Beard also recently competed in the International Open drone race, representing RotorJackets and finishing 17th in the world.

During the academic year, RotorJackets host weekly events both in person and online and have weekend signup times for students to practice flying drones. Once a month they meet in the Invention Studio to build, repair, and troubleshoot their devices. The group also works with local schools to teach K-12 students about drones, drone racing, and drone applications.

Though the group isn’t meeting during the summer, students can still learn more about the club at rotorjackets.tech or by joining the group’s discord.

How did “Top Gun” change movie making, and why does it continue to be relevant 36 years later? To address those questions and much more, the Georgia Tech community reflects on the film and its legacy on the eve of its long-awaited sequel — “Top Gun: Maverick.”

A film studies professor discusses that rebirth of military movies, as well as a memorable soundtrack, and a psychology professor explains adrenaline rush. Three recent ROTC graduates prepare for their own flight school experience. And a current faculty member remembers his days in the real TOPGUN, where he helped Hollywood create a classic.

Read the entire story on the College of Engineering website. 

Kimbrough is returning to his alma mater for the first time since living on the International Space Station (ISS) for six months in 2021. In three trips to space, he has spent 388 days away from Earth, the fourth highest total among U.S. astronauts.

The event will be moderated by Naia Butler-Craig, a Ph.D. student in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. Butler-Craig is a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Fellow and a NASA Pathways intern in the Science and Space Technology Systems branch at Glenn Research Center. The Q&A will be streamed live on the Georgia Tech YouTube channel, where viewers can submit questions. K-12 schools around Atlanta will also participate remotely.

The Q&A session is one of several Georgia Tech events for Kimbrough on Friday. He will spend the morning touring labs dedicated to spacecraft design and space-related research. That evening, he will throw out the first pitch at Georgia Tech’s baseball game against the University of Georgia. The action starts at 6pm at Russ Chandler Stadium.

Kimbrough grew up in Atlanta, attending Georgia Tech sporting events as a kid. He was an NCAA pitcher while earning his undergraduate degree at the United States Military Academy. After nearly a decade serving in the U.S. Army, Kimbrough graduated with a master’s degree in operations research from the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE).

Kimbrough was selected to be an astronaut in 2004. His first mission was aboard space shuttle Endeavour in 2008. He returned to orbit in 2016 aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket, serving as commander of the ISS for six months.

Last April, Kimbrough was commander of NASA/SpaceX Crew-2, launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida. By flying on Crew Dragon, Kimbrough became the fourth person to travel on three different spacecrafts.

During his three missions, Kimbrough has taken Georgia Tech jerseys and a flag from the Ramblin’ Wreck into orbit. He also threw out the first pitch in a taped ceremony from the ISS before a 2021 Georgia Tech baseball game and recorded a message that was played during last fall’s space-themed football game.

In addition to the three faculty members, two additional alumni were honored. Nick Lappos (AE ’73), was also elected to the NAE Class of 2022. Lappos is a senior technical fellow (emeritus) of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp and serves on the Georgia Tech Aerospace Engineering School Advisory Council (AESAC). He was honored for “improving rotary wing flight performance and serving as test pilot, engineer, inventor, technologist, and business leader.”

Nathan Meehan (Phys '75), a member of the College of Sciences Advisory Board, was also elected. He is president of CMG Petroleum Consulting Ltd. and was recognized for "technical and business innovation in the application of horizontal well technology for oil and gas production."

They are among this year’s 133 new members (including international selections).

“On behalf of Georgia Tech, I extend my sincere congratulations to Chris, Sandy, and Nick for this incredible honor, which highlights a lifetime of achievement,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College of Engineering and Southern Company Chair. “Chris and Nick’s research have advanced their respective fields and left an indelible mark on their peers at Georgia Tech and around the world. Sandy, in addition to her service with NASA, is a tireless advocate of raising awareness of STEM and diversity within the aerospace industry in an effort to grow the next generation of the AE workforce. The College of Engineering is tremendously proud of this trio.”

Jones is the John F. Brock III School Chair in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE). He has been a faculty member at Georgia Tech since 2000, leading a ChBE research group that works in catalysis and adsorption, with a strong emphasis in materials chemistry. The NAE is honoring him for “contributions to the design and synthesis of catalytic materials and for advancing technologies related to carbon capture and sequestration.”

Jones is known in the field for his pioneering work on materials that extract carbon dioxide from ultra-dilute mixtures such as ambient air, which are key components of direct air capture technologies that have the potential to reverse climate change.

Magnus (MSE, 1996) is a professor of the practice with joint appointments in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. She is currently a principal at  AstroPlanetview LLC and is being recognized by the NAE for “national accomplishments in the U.S. civil space program and in Department of Defense engineering and technology integration.

As a NASA astronaut, Magnus flew to space three times and spent 157 days in orbit. Before joining NASA, Magnus worked for McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company as a stealth engineer. After retiring as an astronaut, she served as executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). She is now one of three Georgia Tech women in the NAE, joining Marilyn Brown and Susan Margulies.

Sahinidis is the inaugural Gary C. Butler Family Chair in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, with a joint appointment in ChBE. In the NAE announcement, Sahinidis was selected for “his contributions to global optimization and the development of widely used software for optimization and machine learning.” His research activities are at the interface between computer science and operations research, with applications in various engineering and scientific areas.

During his career, Sahinidis developed BARON (Branch-and-Reduce Optimization Navigator), a global optimization software system that solves challenging, nonconvex optimization problems, including continuous, integer, and mixed-integer nonlinear problems. Sahinidis also created ALAMO (Automated Learning of Algebraic Models), a black-box modeling tool that generates simple, yet accurate, algebraic models from data. 

The Academy annual inducts new members, recognizing “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature.” The Academy also honors engineers for being instrumental in "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education." 

Georgia Tech now has 45 NAE members. This year's cohort will be formally inducted during the NAE’s annual meeting in October.

Georgia Tech will provide resources and technical expertise to support the Rotorcraft Vertical Lift Technology Development through task orders in areas such as advanced rotorcraft technologies, testing, flight controls, and health management. Most of the work will be performed on campus, with some taking place at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.

The Rotorcraft Vertical Lift Technology Development (RVLTD) award is an IDIQ (Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity) contract with a total ceiling of $40 million. It allows Georgia Tech to propose, apply, and quickly learn if they’re selected for NASA research projects that could also include developing codes, accessing models for validation, and more.

“Instead of writing a 30-page research proposal and waiting up to year for a decision, this contract vehicle allows us to submit a brief statement of work in response to NASA’s requests for support. We will learn within a few weeks if NASA selects our team for each request,” said Smith, a faculty member in Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering (AE School). “It’s a significant advantage that allows us to collaborate closer with NASA.”

The Georgia Tech group includes GTRI (Georgia Tech Research Institute) and the University of Texas at Arlington. It also includes a number of private companies around the country, with an emphasis on small businesses and organizations led by veterans and women. One of them is Laser Aviation in Duluth, Georgia, which specializes in 3D laser scanning and modeling.

Of the six submissions accepted, Georgia Tech’s proposal was ranked first by the Source Evaluation Board (SEB).

The AE School was one of the nation’s first helicopter rotorcraft research and educational institution. Montgomery Knight became the School’s first director in 1942 and developed one of the first jet-powered rotors for a helicopter. He was among the country’s earliest top researchers of helicopter design.

Through the decades, Georgia Tech has expanded its research to fit the current definition of rotorcraft, which also includes tilt rotors, unmanned air vehicles, and advanced urban air mobility. Georgia Tech has been a Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence (VLRCOE) since 1982, conducting basic research focused on scientific barriers in technologies that support current and future vertical lift capabilities.

The RVLTD award is not restricted to AE researchers. Any Georgia Tech faculty member supporting vertical lift technology can ask to be on the list of faculty who will respond to each NASA request. Those interested should send their contact details and research areas of interest to Smith.

“Georgia Tech faculty and students are contributing to rotorcraft technology research in a variety of ways,” said Smith, who serves as director of the VLRCOE, which receives funding from the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and NASA. “This includes not only vehicle design and analysis in AE, but air traffic control, cyber-physical security, vertiport design, public policy, robotics and sustainability. We have the core faculty and students across the Institute to drive this field. This depth of research, along with our excellent student base, is what makes us more competitive.”

Telling stories also helps us learn and integrate that new information into our existing knowledge, which is partly why helping students tell their stories has become an important part of the curriculum in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. Now the idea is reaching other disciplines in the College of Engineering at Tech with the support of a $3.1 million grant from the Kern Family Foundation.

Under the new project, led by Coulter BME Professor Joe Le Doux, the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the College’s CREATE-X entrepreneurial program will infuse story-driven learning into their curricula to help students build “entrepreneurial mindsets.” The idea is to help students see themselves as engineers ready and able to act, using all the skills they’re learning to solve problems and improve the human condition.

“Throughout engineering education, I would argue, we often don't give students a chance to sit back, reflect, and make connections about what they’re learning and how they can use it,” said Le Doux, executive director of training and learning in the Coulter Department. “Some students do it on their own. But some don't. Those who do, really benefit from it. So, the whole concept of the story-driven learning piece is to help students make these connections about what they're learning, who they are, where they're going.” 

The Coulter Department has been developing this story-driven learning idea for a few years through the Foundation’s Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN). It has developed into a thread that weaves throughout students’ courses: All along their journey, students have significant learning experiences that add to their bank of stories (Le Doux thinks of it like a pensieve from the Harry Potter novels — a storehouse of memories and stories).

Often, students are asked to reflect on what they’re learning and how it connects to their own life experiences. They spend significant time talking to each other about their work and doing peer reviews. They interview people to discover real-world problems to solve and understand user needs. They even write articles in the style of the New York Times.

Then, near the end of their coursework, they take BMED 4000, The Art of Telling Your Story, where they pull from all their experiences at Tech and beyond. It’s here that they learn what makes a good story with the help of award-winning Atlanta playwright Janece Shaffer. She co-teaches the course alongside Le Doux and another faculty member, Cristi Bell-Huff.

“We're teaching them how to tell real stories that make the movie run in your head, so to speak,” Le Doux said.

The new grant expands these ideas into the other programs, scaling up story-driven learning.

“It's really exciting, because 40% of College of Engineering students will be impacted,” Le Doux said. “Every civil, environmental, aerospace, and CREATE-X student will get it — but in different ways.”
 

CREATE-X

The idea of an entrepreneurial mindset isn’t really about creating startups or taking ideas to market. That can be one piece, but it also can manifest when students work for existing firms. The goal is for students to always be thinking about how they, and their companies, can solve problems and create value for society using the resources at hand.

“We believe that entrepreneurial confidence is a life skill that every Georgia Tech student should possess when they graduate,” said Joyelle Harris, associate director of CREATE-X LEARN programs. “We see story-driven learning as an effective methodology to help students understand the entrepreneurial confidence they have gained by participating in CREATE-X programs, regardless of whether they have launched a successful startup.”

CREATE-X will infuse story-driven learning techniques in each component of the LEARN-MAKE-LAUNCH pathway that forms the core of the program.

Most of the 2,000 students who participate in CREATE-X courses each year don’t launch a company. Those who don’t sometimes wonder what they’ve gotten out of the experience, so using story-driven learning techniques can help them reflect on the confidence and skills they have learned and internalize them.
 

Civil and Environmental Engineering

In the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the project will build on a larger, multi-year effort to transform the School’s culture and curriculum by improving students’ sense of belonging and connection.

School leaders are designing a series of four vertically integrated courses — for freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors — focused on interactive problem-based learning and problem solving around the grand societal challenges that civil and environmental engineers work to solve. The classes will feature elements of computational and team development, include reflective teaching and learning, and aim to create a greater sense of belonging among civil and environmental students.

“The overarching objective of this initiative is to incorporate entrepreneurially-minded learning pedagogies into our engineering programs, with a focus on value sensitive design and story-driven learning, to support the development of entrepreneurially minded engineers,” said Adjo Amekudzi-Kennedy, associate chair and professor in the School. “That means engineers who have a mindset and culture of value creation: for society, for the advancement of the economy, and for themselves in ways that formally incorporate societal values and minimize negative consequences.”
 

Aerospace Engineering

Aerospace engineering students will find storytelling modules integrated into several courses throughout their programs of study — again, with the goal of helping them reflect and articulate why they chose the field and how they can translate skills into solutions that create value.

“Our School is excited to be a part of the KEEN grant at Georgia Tech to make significant improvements to our educational program that enable students to think and act with an entrepreneurial mindset as they are exposed to and solve problems that enhance the human condition,” said Mark Costello, William R. T. Oakes Professor and chair of the Guggenheim School.

The School plans to create social learning spaces, where students and faculty can engage in activities outside the classroom and forge stronger connections. Leaders also will create do-it-yourself small-scale experiments for students to build, perform, and improve on their own.
 

It’s About More Than Georgia Tech

For Le Doux and Coulter BME, where innovative engineering education is built into the Department’s DNA, the goals are to continue developing story-driven learning as a teaching approach and create tools to train engineering faculty anywhere to use it. Building out the approach in disparate disciplines at Tech will offer key insights in how to do that.

“How does this roll out in the different units? Each unit has a different culture. We want to impact all of engineering education — it’s an ambitious goal — so we're looking at it from the prospective of organizational change,” Le Doux said. “When people try to adapt this in different programs, different cultures, what are the barriers? What works?”

Le Doux said adopting entrepreneurial-minded learning as a key part of the curriculum throughout the College will be significant: Georgia Tech’s size and reputation mean we have a major influence on engineering education around the nation.

“I would like to see as many colleges of engineering as possible adopting these kinds of approaches. We can share what we've learned with other campuses — and even expand these ideas beyond engineering,” he said. “Helping students see themselves as people who create value will make them more likely to actually do that when they get out in the world. And more generally, they end up knowing themselves better, and they know how to tell really good stories. That's a leadership skill.”

Replacing Smith in her now vacated role as VFS Southern Region director is her Daniel Guggenheim School colleague, Prof. J.V.R. Prasad.

Smith is the current director of a seven-university Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence housed at Georgia Tech and competitively funded through an Army-Navy-NASA collaboration. In addition, she is a board member of the Vertical Lift Consortium, an industry-academic organization that collaborates with the US Government to accelerate development of technology for Future Vertical Lift (FVL) platforms.

The Vertical Flight Society is the world's only international technical society to focus on the advancement of vertical flight technology, encompassing rotorcraft, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), urban air mobility (UAM), and electric VTOL (eVTOL). Smith is globally recognized for her contributions and leadership in her field as a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Technical Fellow of VFS, and Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS). Her research on aeromechanics and unsteady aerodynamics has garnered numerous technical awards from NASA and VFS, as well as recognition from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). She heads up the Nonlinear Computational Aeroelasticity Lab within the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

"My primary focus will be to expand educational opportunities in Vertical Lift to fill the large number of engineers needed for this exciting era, building on our efforts diversity and inclusion, " Smith explained. "In addition, VFS will continue to advocate investment in innovation and development in both military and civilian vertical lift technologies."

Smith recently spoke at length about her vision during the Agility Prime conference.

Smith has served in multiple technical global leadership roles at VFS, including Aerodynamics Technical Chair, the annual Technology Forum Chair, and deputy technical director for Aeromechanics, as well as serving on the VFS Board of Directors. At Tech, she is well-known by generations of vertical lift scholars, having served as the faculty advisor and president of the the Atlanta Chapter for a decade.  

Founded as the American Helicopter Society in 1943, the Vertical Flight Society is the global non-profit society for engineers, scientists and others working on vertical flight technology. For more than 75 years, the Society has led technical, safety, advocacy and other important initiatives, and has been the primary forum for interchange of information on vertical flight technolog

Vickie Brian can't explain it to you, but neither does she question it.

"I was sitting in the dentist's chair having my teeth worked on this past April when my phone started buzzing, and, without looking at it, I knew it was Morgan," says Brian, the assistant director for operations in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

"And it was Morgan. She was telling me she'd made the team, that she was going to France. She was the 23rd pick for the team."

Sidelined for two years with what turned out to be adductor injuries, Morgan Brian, the fiercely competitive midfielder for the 2015 World Cup-winning U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, had rehabbed herself back onto the roster for the much-anticipated 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, currently underway in France.

Morgan Brian started in the USA-Chile game on June 16, and will continue to sub during the upcoming series, as needed. The next game will be Monday, June 24, against Spain.

Vickie Brian last saw her daughter compete on the world stage at the 2015 World Cup in Canada.

Read more from the School of Aerospace Engineering.

The video, “Here to help: Take on the world,” begins with an adult asking a young girl what she wants to be when she grows up. Her response? “I’m going to be an astronaut,” followed by Google searches on how to become an astronaut, “make your own spacesuit,” “famous female astronauts,” and “colleges for aerospace engineering.”

That’s where Tech comes in. The Georgia Institute of Technology appears as the top search result for best aerospace engineering schools, and the user clicks on it.

And with good reason: Georgia Tech’s Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering is currently ranked second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for its undergraduate programs. What’s more, 14 Tech graduates have launched into orbit, including three women – Jan Davis, Susan Still Kilrain, and Sandra H. Magnus. Georgia Tech is also the nation’s top producer of female engineers.

“It is an exciting time to be in the field of aerospace engineering,” says school chair Mark Costello. Especially now that the most-used search engine in the world has taken notice.

He didn't even know that would be an option when he got to Georgia Tech.

"I wanted to go to the best aerospace school to study and learn flight, but I didn't even know they had a flying club here until I got here," he said.

“That’s one of the things I love most about Georgia Tech – you can do it all. Georgia Tech really does enable you with the ability to chase your dreams.”

Now he will be singing at his own graduation on May 5, where he will also pick up his diploma, shake President Peterson’s hand, and celebrate a milestone. And he can’t imagine a better way to mark the occasion.

“Georgia Tech has always been my dream school,” says the Caledonia, New York, native. Ingersoll graduated from a small high school and was one of only three in his class to go to college out of state. “I knew that I wanted to do aerospace engineering since my first year of high school, and Tech had a highly ranked undergraduate program.”

Even as he pursued his academic dreams, Ingersoll was able to follow another of his loves: singing. Since first joining a choir in fourth grade, he has been “singing my whole life.” He made the New York All-State choir in his senior year and was named All-County for seven years in a row, and was also active in musical theater.

At Tech, he was immediately inspired to join the Glee Club after seeing them perform at New Student Convocation. “They seemed like a great group of guys who enjoyed singing and had a great time doing it,” he recalls. “I decided to show up to the first rehearsal on my first day of class.”

Ingersoll never looked back. As a member of the Glee Club, which was founded in 1906 (two years before the Yellow Jacket Marching Band, he notes), he has traveled across the country, proudly representing Georgia Tech. Ingersoll says it “thoroughly enriched my undergraduate experience.”

Between his studies and his singing, Ingersoll made the most of the opportunities that Georgia Tech has to offer. He traveled everywhere from the historic Callaway family home in LaGrange, Georgia, to the nation’s capital and Yankee Stadium. And he spent one summer studying in Ireland, and two summers working at General Electric in Cincinnati, where he helped design a new jet engine. “Coming to Tech, I had no idea what was in store for me,” he says.

He has a better idea of what’s in store after graduation. He will be returning in the fall to begin a master’s degree in aerospace engineering. Ingersoll is already looking forward to experiencing another Yellow Jacket football season and continuing to do meaningful research in the lab. He will also be serving as an officer in the Glee Club, overseeing recruitment and social media efforts.

When asked what his most memorable Glee Club moment has been, he doesn’t skip a beat. “My favorite event will be singing at my own Commencement. I can’t wait to sing Ramblin’ Wreck for all my fellow graduates!”

And they howled with laughter when they saw a car in space.

“It was awesome! It was unbelievable to see something so historic,” said Swapnil Pujari.

He was one of 30 or so Georgia Tech aerospace engineering students who crowded into a lab in the Engineering Science and Mechanics Building Tuesday afternoon to watch a livestream of SpaceX’s first test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket — the Falcon Heavy.

From the sound in the room, the launch was an unquestionable success.

“I got goosebumps when I saw the two boosters land at the same time,” said William Jun, a fourth-year undergraduate in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. “I feel like I’ve witnessed the beginning of a new era.”

It’s hard to imagine what he’ll feel the next time the Falcon Heavy launches.

Tuesday’s launch only carried one piece of cargo, a red Tesla Roadster that is expected to orbit the sun for the next billion years. The next Heavy rocket will be stuffed with satellites. One of them is scheduled to be Prox-1, a 154-pound, rectangular-shaped metal box that was built and tested by Jun, Pujari and other Georgia Tech students. It’s the first spacecraft built on campus that will fly in space.

“This is the part of the space industry that we live for,” said Professor Glenn Lightsey, who watched the launch with the students. “Ultimately, there is a day when you find out if the thing you’ve thought about and planned for actually works or not. Today (Tuesday) it happened for SpaceX. Six months from now, it will happen for us at Georgia Tech.”

Prox-1 is a 24” by 22” by 12” satellite that will deploy a smaller spacecraft, LightSail 2, which will attempt the first controlled solar sail flight in Earth orbit.

As that sail unfurls, Prox-1 will move and observe LightSail from a short distance and acquire images of the glimmering structure in action. Georgia Tech will serve as mission control.

“Our students are going to have their hardware in space, making measurements and sending their data back to Earth,” said Lightsey. “This is a really unique experience that wasn’t even possible before this century. It’s a new way of doing things in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.”

Prox-1 is currently at the Air Force Research Lab in New Mexico, undergoing a series of tests to make sure the satellite can withstand the rugged, violent ride inside the Falcon Heavy. It’s one of the final pre-flight steps for a six-year project that has included more than 400 Georgia Tech students. From there it will be shipped to Florida and await an official launch date from SpaceX.

Although they enjoyed the experience together for Tuesday’s launch, don’t expect many of the same students to gather on campus to watch Prox-1 blast into space.   

“Oh, I will be in Florida for sure!” said Pujari.

Professors Timothy Lieuwen and Jianjun (Jan) Shi are two of this year’s 83 new NAE members. They’re joined by adjunct faculty member and former College of Engineering Dean Gary S. May. The group will be formally inducted during a ceremony at the NAE's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in September.

“We are delighted that the National Academy of Engineering has recognized our Georgia Tech faculty members for their outstanding contributions to engineering and as leaders in their fields,” said Steve McLaughlin, dean and Southern Company Chair in the College of Engineering. “We also take great pride that our former dean and Tech alumnus, Gary May, has been recognized, not only for his research, but also for his advocacy in bringing more underrepresented students into engineering. Their induction is a testament to the quality of our faculty members and their contributions to the engineering profession."

Lieuwen is the executive director of Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute and professor and David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. He was honored for “contributions to research and development in low-emissions gas turbine combustion systems and U.S. energy policy.”

Shi was recognized for “the development of data fusion-based quality methods and their implementation in multistage manufacturing systems.” He serves as Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and professor in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

May was elected for “contributions to semiconductor manufacturing research and for innovations in educational programs for underrepresented groups in engineering.” The 1985 alumnus (electrical engineering) is currently chancellor of the University of California Davis and an adjunct faculty member in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature.” The NAE also makes selections based on "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."

The trio joins nearly three dozen other Georgia Tech NAE members. They include Provost and K. Harrison Brown Family Chair Rafael L. Bras, President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough and College of Computing Dean and John P. Imlay Chair Zvi Galil.

Georgia Tech researchers analyzed the archived mission reports from the Apollo moonwalks to see how well moonwalkers were able to stick to their expected timelines.

On almost every walk or drive on the lunar surface, astronauts fell behind — sometimes as much as an hour, forcing them to drop specific tasks from the schedule.

The report could held guide officials as they plan for crewed missions to mars. Learn more.

The December 2017 graduate of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering will be returning to Tech in January to pursue his master's degree under the tutelage of his advisor, Professor Mitchell L.R. Walker, II.

"I'll be looking at plasma material interaction in Dr. Walker's High-powered Electric Propulsion Lab," says Branch, a native of Cornwall, NY.

"When rockets re-enter the atmosphere we have to better understand what happens between materials and the plasma if we want to reduce degradation. I'm excited to dive into this subject as a grad student."

Sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the 20/Twenties list recognizes raw talent and leadership in up-and-coming students across the nation. As one of the 2018 inductees, Branch has been invited to an AIAA-sponsored awards ceremony, to take place on March 1 in Washington, D.C.

Joining him will be his advisor, Dr. Mitchell Walker.

"Offering Nicholas an undergrad research position in my lab was a great decision. He designed and installed an arcjet propellant feed, developed a diagnostic procedure to characterize the arcjet plasma, and installed a beam dump to extract the beam energy of a Hall effect thruster from the vacuum chamber. His analysis was first-rate and his attention to detail was remarkable. He really is someone to watch."

Drivers, builders, designers, engineers, executives, and even academics with ties to Georgia Tech made their mark on the worlds of stock car and drag racing.

Read the Full Story:

Georgia Tech's Racing Roots, Part 2: The Need for Speed

Staab is working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California while pursuing his aerospace engineering doctoral degree in the distance learning program. He’s a Cassini Spacecraft Flight Controller, which means he’s one of only three people authorized to tell the machine what to do and where to go as it orbits Saturn.

The job is almost finished. Just before 8 a.m. (Atlanta time) on Friday, Staab will hear Cassini’s signal for the final time before it dives into the planet’s atmosphere, becoming a part of Saturn.

Staab has controlled the bus-sized spacecraft since January of 2016, when he was given the keys to the NASA’s flagship Saturn mission. He’s logged more than 1,200 hours at the Cassini flight console. His commands have directed the spacecraft around Saturn 62 times, hurled it through the planet’s rings and soared Cassini around Saturn’s moons. Although Cassini will technically dive into the planet because of a gravitational nudge by Saturn’s moon Titan, Staab was the one who sent the background sequence code that will send it on its fateful plunge. He uploaded the command a few weeks ago.

Staab earned his master’s degree in aerospace engineering in 2015. He came to campus earlier this month to talk to students about the mission and what NASA is calling “The Grand Finale.”

We asked him a few questions about his job, starting with the obvious: How did you get such a cool gig?

I fell into this job from a combination of luck and having the right background. I actually had no intention of applying to JPL when I stopped by JPL’s booth at Georgia Tech’s fall career fair. I chatted with one of their reps and, after some persuasion, was convinced to leave a copy of my resume. I received an offer to be a Cassini flight controller a few weeks later. It was the right job and one that I always wanted.

Prior to attending Georgia Tech, I was a flight test engineering intern at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California and, later, a test requirements and analysis engineer for Boeing in St. Louis. I had a lot of control room and operations experience, which is exactly what JPL was looking for.

The duty of a flight controller at JPL is fairly straight-forward; we possess absolute command and control authority of the spacecraft when tracking it through the Deep-Space Network. We are the only people in the world who can tell the spacecraft what to do. We’re the first to respond to anomalies with either the ground or flight system, and we have the authority to make any real-time decisions to protect the flight system without prior approval. It’s an immense responsibility that only very few people in the world ever get to do. I am still greatly humbled to be given such responsibility by the Cassini flight team so early in my career.

Why are you destroying the spacecraft and ending the mission?

The mission is ending for two reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that the spacecraft is out of fuel. We primarily use its moon, Titan, to navigate around Saturn – stealing more than 100 km/s of delta-v from gravitational assists. But we need fuel to maneuver the spacecraft to very precise locations near Titan. Without it, we can’t navigate the planet. Essentially, we’d be flying blind.

The second, and more important reason, is because we need to protect Titan and Enceladus from the potential organisms on Cassini. The spacecraft has shown both moons to be suitable for supporting life. Titan is the most Earth-like world we’ve discovered in the solar system, with methane clouds and methane-filled surface lakes. Cassini has even detected a global, subsurface ocean beneath Titan’s thick, icy surface.

Enceladus is perhaps an even more exciting world. It also has a global, subsurface ocean underneath its icy crust. Unlike Titan, though, Enceladus is shooting samples of its ocean into space from a set of geysers at its south pole. Scientists have dubbed them “cold faithful.”  Enceladus gave Cassini free samples of its oceans during flybys through its plumes. The spacecraft detected the presence of carbon dioxide, simple organic compounds and molecular hydrogen. Not only do we have organic chemistry taking place in Enceladus’ ocean, but we also have direct evidence of hydrothermal vents on Enceladus’ ocean floor. All the basic ingredients for life – water, organic chemistry and an energy source – exist on the moon. Does Enceladus have life in its ocean? We don’t know yet, but it has shown the strongest evidence yet for the possibility of life outside of Earth.

We want to go back to Enceladus with better instruments to possibly detect the presence of biological signatures. But to do so, we have to preserve the integrity of the moon and not contaminate it with Earth “bugs,” which might have hitched a ride aboard Cassini.

Are you sad?

Yes and no. I will, more than anything, miss working with the Cassini flight team. They’ve become my family at JPL. A part of me is also dealing with the fact that I will no longer get to work in the mission control center. I’ll miss not being able to sit in the chair anymore.

However, Cassini is a victim of her own success. Her discoveries at Titan and Enceladus sealed her fate. We have to dispose of the spacecraft to guarantee it will never impact those biologically interesting moons. And, in the end, Cassini is just a robot. I’m a heartless engineer, but it’s hard to feel sad about the “death” of a machine. We like to anthropomorphize our spacecraft at JPL as having personalities and feelings. I don’t. It will be hard on the morning of the 15th to say goodbye to this mission. But I know this isn’t the end of our exploration of the Saturn system. Cassini has ensured we will return. The only question is when. 

What’s next for you after Cassini is gone?

I’m moving over to Mars as a spacecraft systems engineer (SSE) and flight director for the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. In combination with the responsibilities of a flight director, SSEs are a jack of all trades – from tactical downlink lead, to uplink verification lead, to testbed engineers. These versatile skills are necessary for a mission operating well beyond its original design life. Opportunity was slated for a 90-sol mission (a "sol" is a day on Mars). It’s been on the surface for 4,800 and counting.

What is your advice for your fellow Yellow Jackets interested in aerospace and/or planetary science?

Be inquisitive, innovative and, most importantly, bold. JPL’s motto is “Dare Mighty Things.” That really encompasses the spirit of the people and the type of missions the lab designs, builds and operates.

There really is no other place on Earth where you can build and operate spacecraft that drive on Mars, orbit Saturn and even travel to interstellar space. These missions require the lab to take bold risks and come up with, to an outsider, crazy ideas. But, as co-worker Adam Steltzner put it, it’s the right kind of crazy.

If exploring the solar system and looking for life beyond Earth is something that excites you, JPL is the place for you.

But not the list.

“I’ve gotten through about six of those things – working as a post-doc [at Stanford] and at Sandia National Laboratories [as a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff] … but there was way more there than I thought when I was a grad student. There still is. And that’s what drives us. There's a lot there. And it’s still very, very interesting.”

Oefelein’s enduring fascination with combustion modeling and simulation led him to a very engaging career at Sandia, where he has pursued interdisciplinary research focusing heavily on the theory, numerical modeling, and analysis of complex fluid flows where turbulence, combustion, high-pressure phenomena, and multiphase flows play a controlling role.

Working on long-term projects for the DOE, DOD, NASA, and industry, he employed numerical methods for partial differential equations, with emphasis on computational fluid dynamics (CFD), applied numerical analysis, and massively-parallel high-performance computing. He also applied the large-eddy-simulation (LES) technique to both fundamental flows and device-scale components such as internal-combustion engines, gas turbines and liquid-rockets.

“One of the things I was able to do at the National Lab was to spend 16 years demonstrating the unique capabilities of a massively-parallel LES code framework – a tool that is, now, mature,” he said.

“Now I will use that not just to get results, but as a learning tool for students, distributed across different projects, which is a great opportunity to for both teaching and expanding the impact of our research.”

He might also get a chance to cross off the last six items on the list he gave his grad school advisor – now the chair of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering – Dr. Vigor Yang.

“It is I who will be the student now,” said Yang of his former protégé. “Dr. Oefelein has gone deep into an area that will complement our work at Georgia Tech. I look forward to working with him – as will his colleagues and students.”

Oefelein is excited about this new chapter in his career – one where he will work with students and colleagues to establish new perspectives in the field. Ultimately, he wants to merge expertise in model development validation with the analysis of massively complex data sets. “Equally important is to forge collaborations with my colleagues so that our computational work complements the impressive set of experimental research being performed.”

“The development of high-performance computers has brought a lot of promise to our work, but it also poses many additional and interesting challenges. Modeling and simulation of turbulent combustion – and the related physics – are still in many ways in their infancy. The problems are complex, multi-scale, and multi-physics and require expertise not only in the engineering sciences, but in computer sciences – all of it coupled with experimental efforts,” he said.

In addition to working with his AE colleagues at the Ben T. Zinn Combustion lab, he will be setting up a High Performance Computer lab in Montgomery Knight Building.

But instead of skate boards and Barbie Dolls, the elves were puttng the final touches on Solar Eclipse Safety Packages that will enable 250K young people to view and learn from the rare celestial happening, which will occur on Aug. 21.

Teams of faculty, students, and staff crammed into the AE School's tiny conference room, where, from 8:30 a.m. until 7 p.m., 1,700 packages were assembled, addressed, and sealed. The complicated logistics were plotted out weeks ahead of time by Georgia Tech staffers Alysia Watson and Mike Roberts. Funded by NASA's Georgia Space Grant Consortium, the packages were mailed to schools and other educational venues where they will help make the solar eclipse as safe as it is cool.

And it will be cool. Very cool.

For a brief period of time in the afternoon of Aug. 21, the moon will be aligned directly between the sun and the earth, causing a temporary nightfall here on earth.  Birds will roost. Cattle will settle down for the night. And the temperature difference will cause winds to pick up. At Georgia Tech, where the coverage will be 97 percent complete, several solar eclipse activities have been planned for the campus, which will be in the middle of its first day of classes. (Nice planning, Mother Nature!)

Find out more about Tech's celebrations at Eclipse 2017 @ Georgia Tech.

For AE professor Stephen Ruffin, the eclipse will be an opportunity to spread the word about the importance of space exploration to thousands of would-be scientists. As the executive director of NASA's Georgia Space Grant Consortium, he knows that that a solar eclipse will heighten the public's interest in science, engineering, and the importance of committing resources to space exploration. As the associate chair of the School of Aerospace Engineering, he is grateful that he was able to nudge a few of his colleagues to help out with Thursday's mailroom extravaganza.

"We are grateful to NASA's Space Grant Consortium for making these kits available, and for making space education a priority," he said. "But getting them into the mail? That came directly from the heart and soul of Georgia Tech."

A collaboration between several Institute entities has produced an array of events and educational offerings for the August 21 eclipse. Check them out now.

Their findings, summarized in “Electric Propulsion Reliability: Statistical Analysis of on-Orbit Anomalies and Comparative Analysis of Electrical versus Chemical Propulsion Failure Rates,” give satellite manufacturers, insurers, and operators evidence-based support to pursue electric over chemical propulsion technology for future spacecraft. 

The study is the result of a powerful collaboration between two experts. Saleh and Walker tackled some persistent spacecraft propulsion and reliability questions that had previously given chemical propulsion (CP) the undisputed edge.    

“The work that I do - on reliability, with an epidemiological twist – and the work that Dr. Walker is nationally known for – electric propulsion – both touch on these questions. Our collaboration enabled us to address them and provide robust answers,” said Saleh, the author of Spacecraft Reliability and Multi-State Failures: A Statistical Approach (Wiley, 2012).

“The insights we gained that will, ultimately, benefit the industry, we found at the intersection of our work.” 

Using 18 years worth of satellite data, Saleh and Walker conducted what amounted to an epidemiological study of the on-orbit anomalies and failures of electric propulsion (EP). They produced a comparative analysis of EP and (CP) reliability in spacecraft and examined data by orbit type, technology, severity of the anomalies experienced, and launch date. They also looked at the average time it took for anomalies to occur, the relationship of the time to event, and the anomaly rates.  

Among the many results, their study revealed that, post-2005, EP technologies (Hall Thrusters and gridded ion engines) have consistently out-performed chemical propulsion in terms of reliability. This, alone, gives EP a clear advantage when it comes to space travel and transport, where reliability is paramount.

“With so much at stake, the space industry has been historically risk-averse,” said Saleh.

“You can’t go fix a satellite the way you can a car. No one wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a satellite if there’s no guarantee of its reliability or that of its subsystems." 

Their analysis also revealed that Hall thrusters exhibit minor anomalies very early (“infant anomalies”), a problem that they suggested could be addressed through improved ground testing and acceptance procedures. Gridded ion thrusters, on the other hand, exhibited both infant anomalies and wear-out failures – conditions that would benefit from a reliability growth program. The team found strong evidence that EP anomalies (onset and likelihood) and orbit type are dependent – a condition that is likely mediated by either the space environment or differences in thrusters’ duty cycles.  

Historically, its reliability and superior thrust capabilities made CP the go-to technology for the space industry and other stakeholders. Electric propulsion was restricted to tasks that required little acceleration, such as small in-orbit maneuvers, station-keeping, and (with a chemical assist) some orbit raising.  

An uptick in EP utilization over the past 20 years gave Saleh and Walker the raw data they needed to question that conclusion. Their findings make EP more competitive with CP for future satellites.

With less fuel to transport, an EP-propelled satellite starts out lighter than its chemically propelled counterpart. That means a typical EP satellite can carry more payload (e.g. communications transponders, scientific equipment, etc.) than the same-mass CP satellite. The cost savings in manufacture time, insurance, and materials cannot be overlooked.

 “The bottom line is that we’ve developed a more detailed picture of EP satellite technology, one that enables satellite operators to make better reliability- and risk-informed decisions regarding the propulsion choice for their spacecraft,” said Walker. “This choice could also extend the lifetime of the spacecraft, and [consequently] the long-term value it produces.” 

Saleh echoed his colleague, adding:

“It is thought-provoking to consider that perhaps the bell has begun to toll for spacecraft chemical propulsion. In the next decade, the market share of spacecraft chemical propulsion will continue to erode and is likely to become confined to a small niche market of missions with high thrust and high maneuverability requirements.”  

Effective August 15, Pritchett will become the new head of the Aerospace Engineering Department at Penn State, where Johnson will join the faculty. Their departure marks the end of a two-decade association with Georgia Tech for Pritchett and Johnson, who are married.

"This is bittersweet for the AE School," said AE School Chair Dr. Vigor Yang, himself, a former Penn State professor. "The rigor and vision that Dr. Pritchett and Dr. Johnson bring to their respective disciplines is without peer. They have contributed enormously to the AE School's legacy. But as much as we will sorely miss them, we are proud of what they shared with us during their tenure at Tech and look forward to collaborating with them in the future."

Pritchett holds the David S. Lewis Professorship in the AE School and a joint appointment in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She is the founding director of the Georgia Tech Cognitive Engineering Center.

Johnson holds the Lockheed Martin Avionics Integration Professorship in the AE School and heads up the Georgia Tech UAV Research Facility.

The GT proposal is one of eight nationwide that were chosen for the 2017 fellowship, which also includes a one-year mentorship by Qualcomm engineers.

Theodorou says the innovation fellowship will help him, Rehg, and graduate students Grady Williams (College of Computing) and Paul Drews (School of Electrical and Computer Engineering) to bring their research to place where it will have a transformative impact in the transportation industry.

“Autonomous driving is one of the most important sub-fields in robotics,” said Theodorou. “However, autonomous vehicles driving hundreds of millions of miles are likely to get into situations where it is necessary for them to perform aggressive maneuvers to avoid collision. Our work can have an impact on that.”

The team’s work focuses on the problems faced by two or more autonomous racing vehicles in an environment that has not been previously mapped out. Potholes, bumps, and other irregularities are expected, but cannot be precisely predicted at the onset. Any system seeking to travel over such terrain must be able navigate new decisions on the fly. Each racing vehicle is necessarily pushed to its handling/acceleration limits, a condition that requires even more simultaneous sensing of the environment and other intelligent agents.

“There is only a small margin of error on both the control and perception side when racing against a capable adversary,” said Theodorou. “This research will address fundamental questions in autonomy by bringing together concepts on stochastic optimal control, game theory and deep learning. " 

Named for the first astronaut to set foot on the moon, the award recognizes an individual who best exemplifies the personal character and professional achievement of Armstrong and his astronaut colleagues. It will be annually bestowed upon a former ASF scholar whose research and work have had a positive impact on the aerospace industry and who embodies a passion to expand the boundaries of exploration through science and technology. Biltgen, now the director of analytics at the Virginia-based Vencore, Inc., was an ASF scholar while attending the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

“Dr. Biltgen represents the best qualities of our Astronaut Scholars - not only achieving professional excellence but for his commitment to mentor students and young engineers,” said Curt Brown, ASF Chairman of the Board.

“He was selected from an impressive pool of candidates and we are gratified to see Patrick, and so many of our former scholars, continuing the passion for exploration and scientific excellence.”

In his current position at Vencore, Biltgen has developed innovative data integration methods that have established activity-based intelligence (ABI) for the military and intelligence communities. That work has helped to locate and identify explosive caches used to manufacture improvised explosive devices (IEDs). ABI has been credited with saving the lives of dozens of soldiers.  

"I am grateful to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation for providing life-long opportunities and experiences to advance my engineering education,” Biltgen said.

"My experiences at the Georgia Tech Aerospace Systems Design Lab  were instrumental in preparing me for my career in systems engineering. Professor Mavris taught me how to look at problems differently and boldly pursue innovative solutions. I adapted his methods for aircraft design to data analysis in the intelligence community, cross-fertilizing his techniques like visual analytics and inverse design. I am proud to represent Georgia Tech and the ASDL. "

While the primary beneficiaries of Biltgen’s work have included the military and intelligence communities, it has also been used to document treaty violations and to monitor relief efforts in the Middle East In 2016, Biltgen and his colleague Stephen Ryan co-authored a book on the subject, Activity-Based Intelligence: Principles and Applications.  

While at Vencore, Biltgen has served as the senior systems engineer and subject matter expert supporting Activity-Based Intelligence (ABI) for multiple intelligence customers. He also developed the initial concepts for automated “pipeline” processing for GEOINT data, multi-INT data discovery and correlation, and object-relationship linking with graph theory. Biltgen also led a forecasting study that examined implications for the Intelligence Community in 2050.

Prior to his tenure at Vencore, Biltgen worked as a research engineer and graduate researcher at Tech. His research work integrated machine learning with aircraft design capabilities to simultaneously optimize tactics and technologies for a long-range bomber. He is an expert in highly-dimensional multidisciplinary design optimization, statistical visual analytic methods, and capability-based trade studies.

While earning his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at the Daniel Guggenheim School, Biltgen was also recognized with the National Defense Science and Engineering and Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG), the Astronaut Scholarship, a Georgia Tech Presidential Fellowship, and the 2006 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Orville and Wilbur Wright award. Biltgen was also a fellow in the Sam Nunn Security Program.

The Neil Armstrong Award of Excellence was established in 2016 through a partnership with the Purdue Research Foundation, the Armstrong Family and Neil Armstrong’s friend, Jim Hays. The award pays tribute to the legacy of Armstrong and his fellow space explorers in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. Managed by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, the award honors that legacy while inspiring future generations to embrace science and technology. The Astronaut Scholarship Foundation was created by the surviving Mercury astronauts and their families, a mission that has been embraced by today’s astronauts, to reward the best and brightest university students in science and technology.

The ASF is a nonprofit organization established by the Mercury Astronauts in 1984. The Foundation's mission is to aid the U.S. in retaining its world leadership in science and technology by providing scholarships to extraordinary college students who exhibit motivation, imagination and exceptional performance in these fields, and facilitate programs to educate the public about the impact and importance of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in the United States. ASF funds forty-five $10,000 scholarships to outstanding Astronaut Scholars nationwide with support from astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle and Space Station programs

But for Prof. Wenting Sun, the 69-foot shock tube holds the promise of revolutionizing the efficiency of gas turbines and reducing carbon emissions from fossil fueled energy.

“This represents a new and very exciting capacity for Georgia Tech,” says Sun of the eight-ton, $500K tube, the centerpiece of a joint research endeavor with mechanical engineering professor Devesh Ranjan.

“There really isn’t one this large, doing this kind of research. And it really wouldn’t be possible in most other labs that I know about. It’s so large that no lab would have the room for it. The Zinn Combustion Lab is unique that way.”

Sun said the shock tube will allow AE researchers to obtain higher quality, more accurate data from their work in combustion kinetics at conditions which were not explored before.

“Using this, we can explore a combustor’s properties at new, more extreme, conditions – much higher pressure. We can experiment with different gases. And I will be able to isolate the conditions, which is important because I need to know the exact conditions to validate kinetic models for gas turbine combustors.”

The precision of the shock tube’s engineering is key to Sun’s research. Its structure and capacity allow Sun and his colleagues to extract information they can use to create and validate new models for combustors.

“The conditions we are targeting are around 300 atmospheres [atm], and between 800 and 2500 Kelvin,” said Sun.  “We want to mimic conditions for next generation of gas turbines because we want to have greater efficiency, and greater carbon sequestration. If we can capture the carbon, we can stop it from being emitted.“

Manufactured by Marine Technology, an Irish company, the AE shock tube has an outer diameter of 10 inches, two-inch walls, and a six-inch diameter passageway inside. It is comprised of 10 sections, each riveted to the next. The tube’s sturdy construction allows it to sustain blast waves that replicate actual explosions and their effects. Its smooth inner walls and the relatively large inner passageway give it a unique advantage over smaller, less sophisticated shock tubes.

“That surface is very important because when you initiate a shock wave, you don’t want any interference from the walls. We get more reliable data when we start out with a smooth inner surface,” said Sun. “And the six-inch diameter, inside, allows us to isolate conditions between the walls and the center. Normally, you’d have a one or two-inch diameter tube, and that doesn’t produce data that is reliable.”

Sun said several potential funders – both federal and private - have approached him about pursuing projects now that the shock tube is up and running.

“This will be a very well-used piece of equipment,” he said. “We will be running several experiments a day.”

Sun oversaw the installation of the mammoth tube as a part of a $1M grant  he received to pursue "Investigation of Autoignition and Combustion Stability of High Pressure Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Oxycombustion"-  a three-year study of oxy-combustion technologies capable of high-efficiency, low-cost carbon dioxide (CO2) capture from coal and natural gas-fired power plants. He has been working with two of his AE colleagues, professors Tim Lieuwen and Suresh Menon, and Prof. Devesh Ranjan from the School of Mechanical Engineering.

Oxy-combustion represents one of the most promising methods for removing carbon dioxide from gas and coal-fired power plant exhaust gases. Unlike conventional combustion processes that utilize air as the oxygen source, oxy-combustion utilizes pure oxygen for combustion.

The approach produces a flue gas stream consisting mainly of CO2 and water vapor, which allows the CO2 to be much more easily and more cost-effectively captured from exhaust gas than with conventional combustion methods where nitrogen is the dominant flue gas component.

While the use of pure oxygen eliminates the presence of pure nitrogen in the flue gas - which can react negatively with oxygen at combustion temperatures - the approach requires high-pressure, high temperature operating conditions that far exceed the capabilities of conventional gas turbine engines. In addition, little is known about how the extreme conditions or the higher bulk gas concentrations of CO2 in the oxy-combustion environment affect combustion properties and overall system performance.

The two-year, $20,000 fellowships were established recently using funds made possible by the William R. T. Oakes Professorhip which Yang holds. As recipients, Hodges and Prasad will each receive $10,000 per year for a maximum of a two- year period. These funds may be used for faculty travel, summer support,graduate student support, and materials and supplies. The funds may also be used for teaching time buy-out.

Neither of the longtime faculty had any idea that the Chair was considering them for the fellowships.

"I’m truly grateful for this honor," said Hodges. "How wonderful to find out about receiving such an award upon return from travel."

In making the announcement, Yang was quick to point out that the awards are a small token of appreciation for Hodges, Prasad, and many other senior faculty in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

"I am most proud of our AE School, and especially, of our very gifted hardworking senior faculty.  Our senior

faculty have distinguished themselves with decades of scholarship,  research, outstanding teaching and mentoring, and national leadership. Our School owes its current prominence to the leadership of these great individuals," he said.

In future years, our hope is to continue to recognize other senior faculty in our School."

The article, “Dynamics of Phononic Materials and Structures: Historical Origins, Recent Progress, and Future Outlook” has garnered 110 citations since it was first published in 2014. Ruzzene’s co-authors are Georgia Tech mechanical engineering professor Michael J. Leamy and University of Colorado professor Mahmoud I. Hussein.

“We are very happy with the response, because not only was it an addition to the literature, but colleagues have told us that they have used the tutorial in the article to introduce the field of phononics to their graduate students,” said Ruzzene. “That’s what we wanted to see happen. “

A phononic medium is a material or structural system that usually exhibits some form of periodicity, --  in the constituent material phases,  the internal geometry, or even the boundary conditions. The study of phononic materials and structures explores the intersection of vibration and acoustics engineering and condensed matter physics. The overall dynamical characteristics of phononic materials are compactly described by a frequency band structure, in analogy to an electronic band diagram.

Ruzzene said he worked extensively on that tutorial, which he put together using material he had developed for his own students.

The trio’s work was selected from among 36 papers published in the journal over the last two years by a committee consisting of the journal’s editorial board and the ASME Applied Mechanics Division vice chair, Pradeep Sharma.

Ruzzene, Leamy, and Mahmoud have been invited to formally receive their honor at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE) which will be held in Phoenix this November.

"People thought I was crazy because I was in Argentina — in a small town," said Rimoli,  laughing.

But it was no joke.

Rimoli put his dreams to work, earning an aeronautics engineering degree at Argentina's Universidad Nacional de La Plata before coming to the U.S to earn a master's and doctoral degree from Caltech. Prior to accepting a faculty position at GT-AE in 2011, he spent two years as a post-doc at MIT's  Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.  

Becoming an astronaut is no longer on his wish list, but Rimoli is not complaining...

"I really like this place," Rimoli said of  the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

"I haven't been able to find another place with the level of energy we have on this campus. The students are very active, and they always have ideas and want to participate in research. The faculty is the same — lots of people are willing to collaborate all the time.

Classroom Strategies 

In the five years that he has been at GT-AE, Rimoli has excelled as a teacher, receiving both the Lockheed Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching  and the Goizueta Junior Faculty Professorship.

In the classroom, he says, it's important to reconstruct the process and build on the story. 

"Each lecture has its own story," he said. "I spend a lot of time thinking on the concept of how something comes to be the way it is."

Of his statics class (COE 2001), Rimoli said it was as important for students to gain an intuition about the subject as it is for them to gain technical knowledge. He is frustrated - and a little inspired - when he fails to convey both.

"When I perceive that students are not understanding, I think about how to fix it the next time I teach it," he said. "But at that moment, I try to come up with new ways of explaining, and try different examples or angles.

And it's okay, he tells his students, if they don't understand everything in class. 

"In the classroom, you get the big picture and, hopefully, you get a good set of notes to help you study. But at the end of the day, there's no way around studying."

Reaching Students

Rimoli is excited by the exchange of energy in his classes - whether he's teaching undergraduates or doctoral students. 

"The moment I walk into the classroom, I get energy. I give them energy, and they give me energy back," he said.

"It always helps if the students are engaged, and it takes time to build a relationship with the class. The classroom dynamic is not the same the first week of class as it is at the end of the semester."

Rimoli said the excitement level varies according to what he is teaching. 

"When I teach an advanced graduate level class, what excites me is that it really forces me to learn," he said.

"I have to prepare for these smart Ph.D. students who are going to ask tough questions. I want to — as much as possible — know the answer or be ready to think about the answer on the spot. It's a very stimulating intellectual challenge.

When teaching statics, an undergraduate course, Rimoli faces a different set of challenges.

"What I enjoy is the challenge of how to teach what, to me, is obvious," he said. "I have to put myself in the mindset of the students, and try to remember where I was [at their age].

He also has to be mindful about actively expressing the commitment he has to his students. Rimoli said that students are really good at reading the commitment of the faculty. 

"I think students appreciate the commitment," he said. "They may or may not like your teaching style, but if you are committed, they will respect it."

Rimoli's commitment shows. When he was teaching his students about trusses, he took the time to create "Truss Me! — an app that employs a video game format to coach students to think intuitively about truss behavior.

His commitment has had an impact that goes far beyond his classroom.

Released in 2014, Truss Me! has had 120,000 downloads in more than 140 countries, including 36,000 downloads from educational institutions.  

The app has gained a popular following here at Tech, but, Rimoli observes, the most important feedback he's received for his efforts has had nothing to do with it.

"The best reward is on the last day of class when a student shakes your hand and says, "I enjoyed your class."

Braun will formally join the CU campus community in October and assume his role as dean in January 2017.

In his public announcement of Braun's appointment, CU Provost Russell L. Moore lauded the longtime Georgia Tech professor:

“From helping lead the team that put the first rover on Mars, to heading up large engineering organizations in the federal government, to growing Georgia Tech’s space science and space technology focus, Bobby has successfully led diverse teams through periods of dynamic growth in a manner that builds community, enhances quality and yields tangible results,” said Moore.“He is an outstanding scholar whose technical and organizational leadership skills will be an asset as we continue to strive for increasing our student success, creating a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, and elevating our reputation. We are very excited to have Bobby join the CU Boulder leadership team.”

The founder and former director of Georgia Tech's interdisciplinary Center for Space Technology And Research (C-STAR), Braun, an NAE member, started his career at NASA Langley where he worked for 16 years. Since joining the Georgia Tech campus 13 years ago, he has played a significant role in the growth of the School's space-oriented research and educational endeavors.

News of his CU appointment was met with bittersweet regard by his Georgia Tech colleagues - chief among them School Chair Vigor Yang.

“We will truly miss our friend and colleague, Bobby Braun," said Yang.

"Bobby’s intellectual and career triumphs are points of pride for our community. He has been an outstanding faculty member in every measure. We have benefited from his vision, energy, and passionate dedication for more than 13 years.  We wish him the best as he moves on to this exciting new challenge.”

In acknowledging the impending move, Braun was quick to praise Georgia Tech.

“Georgia Tech will always have a special place in my heart. The School has provided me a remarkable opportunity to grow and contribute as a professional – building a new aerospace curriculum, pioneering research in space technology, mentoring faculty, and broadening the School’s collaborations within the Institute,” he said.

“I particularly appreciate the support, friendship, guidance and collaborative spirit of my Georgia Tech colleagues as we worked towards the betterment of the Institute and the nation. I will bring this spirit of innovation and dedication with me to Colorado.”

Braun’s appointment concludes a national search carried out by a CU search committee that attracted a large pool of candidates, said Moore.

First, the longtime researcher was selected by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) to give the 2016 von Kármán Lectureship in Astronautics. This year's talk will focus on the theme: "Rethinking Space Propulsion: Enabling the Future of Space Transportation and Exploration."

Yang was also recently elected to membership in the Academia Sinica (AS), the highest honor bestowed on scholars of Chinese origin.

The von Kármán Lectureship in Astronautics is presented to recognize an individual who has performed notably in the field. It is named in honor of Theodore von Kármán, world famous authority on aerospace sciences.

The lecture will be given during the AIAA Space and Astronautics Forum and Exposition (SPACE2016) Forum which will take place on Tuesday, September 13 at the Long Beach Convention Center in California. An engraved medal and certificate of citation will be presented after the lecture.

Membership in Academia Sinica is a crowning achievement for Yang, placing him in the company of Nobel Laureates, Wolk  Prize winners, and at least four distinguished Georgia Tech faculty: Jeff Wu (ISyE), B. H. Fred Juang (ECE) and Mei-Yin Chou (Physics).

A member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of both ASME and AIAA, Yang has served on the editorial advisory boards of virtually all the major journals in the fields of combustion, propulsion, and energetic, including AIAA Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics; Progress in Energy and Combustion Science; Combustion and Flame; JANNAF Journal of Propulsion and Energetics; Journal of Aeronautics, Astronautics, and Aviation; Journal of Chinese Institute of Engineers; International Journal of Fluid Machinery and System; and Combustion, Explosion, and Shock Waves.

With the announcement Costello joins an elite group of ASME members recognized for supporting the organization's commitment "to be the essential resource for mechanical engineers and other technical professionals throughout the world for solutions that benefit humankind."

Costello holds AE's David S. Lewis Professorship of Autonomy and holds an appointment in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

In 2013, Costello launched the Georgia Tech Center for Advanced Machine Mobility (CAMM), a multidisciplinary research network of faculty and students engaged in creating new mobile platform technologies and configurations. The CAMM focuses on creating highly specialized and application-specific technologies to improve the mobility of new and existing platforms.

"Professor Costello has earned an outstanding international reputation for his creative research -- at the intersection of design, dynamics, and control system engineering,"  said Yang, also an ASME Fellow.
"He has created and implemented innovative technologies for flight vehicles such as rotorcraft, smart projectiles, and autonomous airdrop systems that improve the machine’s dynamic behavior and automatic control. This has included creation of new physical control mechanisms, specialized autonomous control algorithms and software, and unique sensor arrays. Many of these technologies have been commercialized and transferred to practice through collaborations with industry and government partners." 

Costello earned his master's and doctoral degrees in aerospace engineering at the Daniel Guggenheim School. His research focuses on dynamics, control, and design. He has earned national recognition for a substantial research program in the development of innovative flight mechanics and controls technologies for a variety of flight vehicles, including rotorcraft, projectiles, parafoils, and unmanned air vehicles.

Prior to his appointment at Georgia Tech, Costello was on the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University and the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also worked as a research engineer in the Helicopter Division of the Boeing Company and at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

The team has been quietly testing its work on the Georgia Tech Autonomous Racing Facility on Marietta Street for the last few months, using one-fifth-scale, fully autonomous auto-rally cars that operate at the equivalent of 90 mph.
 
Sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Office, the research seeks to increase vehicular stability while maintaining performance. Their technique – which uses advanced algorithms, onboard computing, and specially installed sensing devices – is garnering some serious attention, too.

Last month, it was presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). In the days that followed, it was celebrated in a number of online media outlets, all of them eager to showcase the next big technological breakthrough in driverless vehicles. (This You-Tube video received more than 80K views.)

“An autonomous vehicle should be able to handle any condition, not just drive on the highway under normal conditions,” said Tsiotras, an expert on the mathematics behind rally-car racing control.
 

“One of our principal goals is to infuse some of the expert techniques of human drivers into the brains of these autonomous vehicles.”

Traditional robotic-vehicle techniques use the same control approach whether a vehicle is driving normally or at the edge of roadway adhesion, Tsiotras explained. The Georgia Tech method – known as model predictive path integral control (MPPI) – was developed specifically to address the non-linear dynamics involved in controlling a vehicle near its friction limits.
 

Utilizing Advanced Concepts
“Aggressive driving in a robotic vehicle – maneuvering at the edge – is a unique control problem involving a highly complex system,” said Evangelos Theodorou, an AE assistant professor who is leading the project. “However, by merging statistical physics with control theory, and utilizing leading-edge computation, we can create a new perspective, a new framework, for control of autonomous systems.”

The Georgia Tech researchers used a stochastic trajectory-optimization capability, based on a path-integral approach, to create their MPPI control algorithm, Theodorou explained. Using statistical methods, the team integrated large amounts of handling-related information, together with data on the dynamics of the vehicular system, to compute the most stable trajectories from myriad possibilities.

Processed by the high-power graphics processing unit (GPU) that the vehicle carries, the MPPI control algorithm continuously samples data coming from global positioning system (GPS) hardware, inertial motion sensors, and other sensors. The onboard hardware-software system performs real-time analysis of a vast number of possible trajectories and relays optimal handling decisions to the vehicle moment by moment.

In essence, the MPPI approach combines both the planning and execution of optimized handling decisions into a single highly efficient phase. It’s regarded as the first technology to carry out this computationally demanding task; in the past, optimal- control data inputs could not be processed in real time.

Fully Autonomous Vehicles
The researchers’ two auto-rally vehicles – custom built by the team – utilize special electric motors to achieve the right balance between weight and power. The cars carry a motherboard with a quad-core processor, a potent GPU, and a battery.
Each vehicle also has two forward-facing cameras, an inertial measurement unit, and a GPS receiver, along with sophisticated wheel-speed sensors. The power, navigation, and computation equipment is housed in a rugged aluminum enclosure able to withstand violent rollovers. Each vehicle weighs about 48 pounds and is about three feet long.

These rolling robots are able to test the team’s control algorithms without any need for off-vehicle devices or computation, except for a nearby GPS receiver. The onboard GPU lets the MPPI algorithm sample more than 2,500, 2.5-second-long trajectories in under 1/60 of a second.

An important aspect in the team’s autonomous-control approach centers on the concept of “costs” – key elements of system functionality. Several cost components must be carefully matched to achieve optimal performance.

In the case of the Georgia Tech vehicles, the costs consist of three main areas: the cost for staying on the track, the cost for achieving a desired velocity, and the cost of the control system.

A sideslip-angle cost was also added to improve vehicle stability.
The cost approach is important to enabling a robotic vehicle to maximize speed while staying under control, explained James Rehg, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing who is collaborating with Theodorou and Tsiotras.

It’s a complex balancing act, Rehg said. For example, when the researchers reduced one cost term to try to prevent vehicle sliding, they found they got increased drifting behavior.

“What we're talking about here is using the MPPI algorithm to achieve relative
entropy minimization – and adjusting costs in the most effective way is a big part of that,” he said. “To achieve the optimal combination of control and performance in an autonomous vehicle is definitely a non-trivial problem.

Story courtesy of Rick Robinson, Georgia Tech Research News

The director of GT-AE’s Air Transportation Lab (ATL), Clarke traveled to Detroit last month to formally receive the honor during SAE’s World Congress. Joining him were members of his research team, colleagues from Georgia Tech,  Delta Air Lines, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The Society honored Clarke for his work as the principal investigator on a research team that developed the RIIVR Optimized Profile Descent (OPD) Arrival procedure at Los Angeles International Airport. Implemented in 2007, the procedure has reduced the fuel consumed by arrivals at LAX by an estimated 2 million gallons annually.

“In addition to reducing the amount of fuel consumed, CO2 and NOx emissions are also reduced – environmental considerations that are hindering the growth of aviation,” said Clarke.

The OPD procedure, pioneered by Clarke, minimizes noise, gaseous emissions, fuel consumption, and flight time while simultaneously maintaining or in some cases increasing landing efficiency via the accurate modeling of the vehicle’s performance when there are uncertainties with respect to aircraft weight, pilot performance, and turbulence.

“Instead of allowing aircraft to begin their descent and then periodically stopping their descent so that air traffic controllers can correct for the effects of uncertainties, we model the effects of these uncertainties ahead of time and compensate for them in a strategic manner through optimal spacing prior to the start of the descent, thereby allowing the aircraft descend continuously at or near idle thrust,” said Clarke.

Honored alongside Clarke were Grady Boyce (technical pilot at Delta Air Lines); Sandy Liu (engineer in the FAA Office of Environment and Energy); Walter White (formerly the airspace manager in the FAA Southern California TRACON and now the CEO of PBN4ATC, Inc.); Jim Brooks (senior research scientist in the ATL); Gaurav Nagle (formerly a graduate student at ATL and now a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin); Liling Ren (formerly a research engineer in the ATL and now a principal scientist at the GE Global Research Center); and Annalisa Scacchioli (formerly a post-doc in the ATL and now an assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology).

In addition to LAX, the OPD procedure has been adopted at several other busy airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Anchorage International Airport (ANC), and Honolulu International Airport (HNL).

The FAA estimates this has shaved $21.7 million off the annual fuel costs for these four airports, and, says Clarke,  “if you extrapolate those figures to the top 35 airports, we could see a savings of $112 million per year in fuel costs.”

Read more about this research.

Harrison, a doctoral student, is one of several students working with ASDL director Dr. Dimitri Mavris and research engineer Dr. Hernando Jimenez on the Partnership to Enhance General Aviation Safety Accessibility and Sustainability (PEGASAS), FAA

Center of Excellence for General Aviation. Harrison’s project, Safety Analysis for General Aviation, aims at enhancing the safety of general aviation operations through the improved use of flight data.

“Ultimately, we want to identify unsafe states, so we can better predict problems and trends in general aviation, and formulate effective safety enhancements” said Harrison.

Harrison and his fellow researchers are comparing data collected with on-board recorders with aircraft performance models developed by the team that seek to predict aircraft behavior and response under different conditions. While commercial airplanes already record many flight parameters, and some carriers share anonymized data for safety analysis, this practice is voluntary and not widely adopted in general aviation.

Models describing the aircraft’s behavior must capture extreme conditions, common in safety-critical events, with great accuracy. These models are helping Harrison’s team to understand the energy state of aircraft at any given time, and to use energy-based metrics as a method for identifying unsafe states.

“If you look at time-stamped recordings of the aircraft’s flight – and use our models to estimate key parameters that are not recorded, like lift, drag, weight, and thrust – you can describe its performance more completely. Retrospectively, then, we can analyze when an aircraft has flown too close to the boundary of its performance envelope.”

Harrison has developed a detailed internal combustion cycle engine model that uses engine characteristics to predict the power output over a wide range of conditions. His efforts to develop, test, and validate the model against little published data available presented numerous difficulties.

“He tackled them with creativity and a sound technical foundation,” said Jimenez.

“Evan also collaborated with other graduate students working in this project to integrate, test, and validate aerodynamic and propulsion models against aircraft performance data. He even made some important refinements to his model to better use the data to infer the propulsive characteristics.”

Just a few months ago, in May, his Ranging And Nanosatellite Guidance Experiment (RANGE) cubesat proposal was approved  through the Skybox University Cubesat Partnership. Now, it's in the design stages.

"The current schedule requires that the RANGE satellites be flight-ready by 2016," said Gunter.  "That means we'll have just one year to go from concept to launch."

Can it be done?

"Yes, but it will no doubt be challenging," says Gunter.

"We are already deep into the design phase, and we will start assembly and testing in the spring. We have a talented group of students working hard to make sure we meet our deadlines."

The RANGE mission will consist of two cubesats, measuring 10x10x15 cm, that will fly in a leader-follower formation. The on-board instrumentation will include state-of-the-art global positioning system (GPS) receivers, linked to miniaturized atomic clocks, for precise orbit determination. The relative positions of the satellites will be measured using a compact inter-satellite laser ranging system that will also double as a laser communications system. Corner cube reflectors will allow the absolute and relative position estimates to be verified using ground-based satellite laser ranging (SLR) measurements provided by the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS).

"Our goal is to have at least one set of coincident ground-based satellite laser ranging, high-rate GPS, and inter-satellite laser ranging measurements," said Gunter.

"If we can achieve that, even if this happens within the first week of operations, then we will consider the mission a success."

The mission seeks to validate technology that, among other things, has the potential to both track cubesat orbits down to mere centimeters, and to measure the relative distance between the satellites down to millimeters, Gunter said.

"We believe the results from this mission will push the limits of positioning accuracy for cubesats, and has to potential to enable a host of new mission concepts that can change how we gather information from space, to include imagery, topography, time-variable gravity, and much more," Gunter pointed out.

"In the future, we could deploy tens or hundreds of these satellites around Earth or other planets to create orbiting sensor networks that could gather near real-time global observations, and have the satellites be able to communicate with each other."

Gunter intends for the RANGE mission to serve primarily as a demonstration of new technologies, and he is already eying follow-up research projects after RANGE's launch.

"We’re grateful for getting a launch slot, since these are hard to get, and it’s exciting to think that what we’re developing will soon fly in space."

In addition to a team of 23 undergraduate and graduate researchers, Gunter will collaborate with GT-AE professors Robert Braun and Glenn Lightsey, as well as GTRI's  Grady Tuell and his research group.

The Steering Committee for the Decadal Survey will generate recommendations from the environmental monitoring and Earth science & applications communities on a sustainable approach for the U.S. government’s civilian space-based Earth-system science programs. These programs are carried out predominantly by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), with supporting and complementary contributions from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the U.S. departments of Energy (DoE) and Defense (DoD). This committee will work for 18-24 months. 
Find out more about this committee.

The Committee on the Future of Center-Based Multidisciplinary Engineering Research will develop a vision and make high-level, strategic recommendations for the future of NSF-supported center-scale, multidisciplinary engineering research. The study will focus on the forces that are likely to shape engineering research, education, and technological innovation in the future, as well as the associated challenges and opportunities.

A member of the NAE since 2013, Braun already serves as vice chair of NAE's Space Studies Board and as chair of NAE's U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Program. He also holds the David and Andrew Lewis Professorship in Space Technology and is the director of Georgia Tech's Center for Space Technology And Research (C-STAR). 
Find out more about this committee.

"It's going to be a busy year," he said.

Clarke received the award and accompanying medal during ceremonies held in Arlington Virginia this past October. The honor recognizes his many contributions to the ASB during a three-year appointment to the Board which will officially conclude in June, 2016.

The director of the GT-AE’s Air Transportation Laboratory, Clarke has frequently been called upon to give expert advice to government and industry groups during his 10-year tenure at Georgia Tech. The Army Science Board is a Congressionally-chartered body that advises the secretary of the Army, the chief of staff of the Army, the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA-ALT), the Army staff, and major Army commanders on scientific and technological matters. Its members are appointed by the Secretary of Defense.

During his three-year appointment, Clarke helped produce three reports on the optimization of American military forces.

In the first report, “Evaluation of the Army Use of Predictive Data for High Risk Behavior,” Clarke and the other members of his ASB study team examined and evaluated the data, models and algorithms used for predictive analysis and the related potential human and ethical dimensions. For example, the report provided a predictive analytic framework to evaluate the likelihood of suicidal ideation and action among individual troops. Specifically, publicly available sources, such as social media, police records, financial records, and criminal judgments are utilized to create a framework in which high-risk individuals may be monitored and proactively helped. That report, like the others, has been sent to the secretary of the Army and the chief of staff for further review.

“It’s surprising how easy it is to predict some things,” said Clarke. “But we also need to be very careful not to sound a false alarm, because we don’t want to initiate an unnecessary response that becomes a permanent negative part of someone’s record.”

In the second report, “Decisive Army Strategic and Expeditionary Maneuver,” the ASB study team identified challenges in 2025 that will effect the Army's ability to conduct strategic and expeditionary maneuver; explored options in joint air- and sea-basing, commercial capabilities and partnering opportunities to improve the Army's ability to maneuver; and identified technologies and other innovations that could improve the Army's strategic and expeditionary maneuver capabilities.  

The final report in the series, “Strategies to Optimize Army Operating and Generating Forces for 2025 and Beyond” seeks to develop strategies for rebalancing the Army operating and generating force to retain or gain capabilities in the mid-term (2025) and beyond (2030-2040). It also identifies opportunities to improve the efficiency of operating force combat service support and generating force capabilities to help provide the means to invest in core operational capabilities. The study team identified activities and tasks that could be outsourced to non-military vendors, thus allowing specially trained troops to execute more narrowly on their combat-focused mission. 

The prestigious award will fund "Explosive Ozonolysis Reactions for Combustion Control" - an investigation of new techniques to control combustion in hypersonic vehicles (vehicles traveling between five to eight times the speed of sound).

Sun was one of just 56 young scientists nationwide to receive the grant, which is awarded annually to rising stars in the scientific community who have received their doctorates within the last five years. This year, more than 260 scientists applied.

Sun's research team will focus on both the experimental and numerical investigation of explosive ozonolysis reactions - the spontaneous reactions between ozone and unsaturated hydrocarbons. The goal is to use his findings to control combustion for hypersonic vehicles.

"This (ozonolysis) is something new for aerospace, perhaps, but atmospheric scientists have been studying this process for awhile," said Sun.

"We will be looking a their effect on flame dynamics and the kinetics relevant to flying at hypersonic speeds. Currently they are missing in combustion kinetic mechanisms."

Ultimately, Sun points out, his research will give engine designers a new arsenal of tools to produce hypersonically propelled aircraft- vehicles able to travel at speeds in excess of five times the speed of sound.

"Right now, the engine conditions at hypersonic speeds are too harsh to allow combustion at those speeds. The air flow is too rapid to burn the fuel. It's there for just milliseconds. And if the fuel doesn't burn, we cannot get the thrust we need."

Why go so fast?

"Well, I guess you could use this technology to pick a peach off the tree in Georgia and send it to California in a few minutes," Sun quipped.

"But that would be a very expensive peach. The Air Force is interested in this because it will allow them to reach any place on earth in two hours or less. There are lots of reasons why that is an important goal, worth the expense."

In addition to supporting research that has long-interested Sun, the AFOSR grant shines some much-deserved attention on the field of combustion.

"This is a classic field, one that has been studied for years and years, so a lot of people think that combustion research cannot yield new findings," he said. "But I think with this research we are showing that is not true. We are finding new mechanisms for this classic field."

Pierson officially ended her 26-year tenure at Georgia Tech on December 31, while the campus was empty. But her colleagues were not about to let her leave so anonymously. The standing-room only crowd at her tribute included two former Space Grant directors, several former students, and countless friends -- all of whom had something to say.

"The Georgia Space Grant Consortium would not be nearly as successful if Wanda had not been here, behind the scenes, making things happen," said Professor Stephen Ruffin, the current GSGC director. "It's hard to imagine our work without her. She will be sorely missed."

Joining Ruffin were  former Space Grant directors Dr. David Peters, and Dr. Erian Armanios, both of whom flew to Atlanta solely to wish Pierson well.

"We had narrowed it down to two candidates when Wanda walked in for her interview," said Peters, now the McDonnell Douglas Professor of Engineering at Washington University. "But the minute I saw Wanda, I knew we had the right person."

Those sentiments were echoed by Dr.Carmen Sidbury, Spelman College's associate provost for research, who met Pierson when she was a student at Tech.

"She was there for students in ways that counted," Sidbury remarked.

"She was committed to helping us get over the rough spots so we would succeed. Now, the best way for us to thank her is to do the same."

Pierson remained composed but was clearly moved by the presence of so many admirers. Dabbing tears away from the corners of her eyes, she greeted each person as though they were the most important person in the room.

"I can't believe you are here," she said to Roland Barnes, a former Space Grant student who graduated from Georgia Tech and is now an engineering manager at Pratt & Whitney. "It is sooo good to see you."

NASA's Space Grant Consortium seeks to expand opportunities for up and coming students to understand  and participate in NASA's aeronautics and space projects by supporting and enhancing science and engineering education, research and public outreach efforts.

Officially established in 1990, the Georgia chapter of NASA's National Space Grant consortium originally consisted of just four other colleges/universities. It has since grown to include 17 colleges, two non-profit organizations, and two industrial affiliates. Throughout that time, it has had three directors, but only one program manager: Wanda Pierson.

"No less than any of our faculty, Wanda has devoted herself to the success of aerospace engineering - as an interest, a major, and a career," said GT-AE school chair Vigor Yang. "Our gratitude is limitless."

The Georgia Space Grant Consortium has programs in five key areas

• K-12STEM education - Enhancing teacher training, and direct student programs;
• Working with Informal Education Providers (Science Centers, museums, after school programs, etc.);
• Higher Education - Providing internships and authentic technical experiences for College students;
• Faculty Research - Developing or collaborating on cutting edge scientific and engineering research with private industry, academic institutions, the military, and other government agencies;
• Fellowships - providing funding for students to pursue degrees in STEM.

   

Now, we have something to back up our boast.

Aviation consultant and GT-AE alumnus Gary Weissel has gifted his alma mater with two first-classcommercial airplane seats, each specially emblazoned with the school's name and the Institute's trademark campanile. 

"I'd always wanted to see if I could do something like this," said Weissel, the managing officer for Tronos Aviation Consulting, Inc., a Woodstock-based company.

"So I asked my friend, Scott Greenbaum [of Signature Aerospace] if he could come up with some seats that we could upgrade to give to Georgia Tech. The seats he procured were designed in the mid-late 90’s for Delta’s 737-800’s. I was actually the Delta product manager at the time this seat was developed, so it was actually my seat program."

Another GT alum, the late  Christina [Olson] Tredway, BIE '92, was responsible for the seat cover design.

"She was the interiors engineer at Delta back then," he said. "Another Tech grad I worked with."

The fully reclining leather thrones provide unprecedented luxury for visitors to Montgomery Knight 301 - home of the communications, development, and academic advising manger's offices. But don't look for any hot towels or foie gras on the tray tables.

"The trays are perfect for students filling out registration forms or checking their homework," said William R. T. Oakes Professor and school chair Dr. Vigor Yang.

"These are working seats."

Brand new, Weissel estimates the seats would cost around $8K -$10K. In their current installation, they are a priceless (and practical!) reminder of alumni innovation, support, and humor.

"I’m absolutely thrilled that the School likes the seats and hope that they bring enjoyment and are a topic of discussion for students, alumni and staff for years to come," said Weissel. 

Powered by four Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593 turbojet engines, the Concorde first took its place on the world stage in 1969 when it traveled twice the speed of sound (Mach 2.04). It made its first passenger flights in 1976.

The 7,000-pound engineering masterpiece was made available to Georgia Tech by the Rolls Royce Heritage Trust-Allison Branch. It will remain on display indefinitely.

“In all of our activities with George Tech throughout the years, Rolls-Royce continues to be impressed by the professionalism and knowledge of the students, graduates, researchers, and of course, the faculty,” said Mark Rhodes, vice president of engineering, Rolls-Royce North America.

“Through this exhibit, we hope to inspire the next generation of brilliant minds who will lead the future in gas turbine technology and design.”

Rhodes estimated that over the last five years alone, Rolls Royce has hired as many as 40 GT-AE grads to work on various engineering projects.

"We have a place in our family for Georgia Tech grads, certainly."

Greeting Rhodes and other Rolls Royce officials at the standing-room-only ceremony were GT-AE chair Dr.Vigor Yang, ASDL director Dr. Dimitri Mavris, GT vice provost for international education Dr. Yves Berthelot, and associate dean of engineering Dr. John Leonard.

"The Concorde took its first flight about the time I received my undergraduate degree," said Yang.

"It is a piece of history. It is educational. But more than that, it is inspirational."

Yang's thoughts were echoed by Berthelot:

"I grew up in France, and believe me, the Concorde made us dream. This is what we need for our students today. Having it here, at Georgia Tech, will make them dream, too."

Marbled throughout the crowd were dozens of Georgia Tech engineering students, eager to observe the legendary Olympus engine and speak to its sponsors. The conversations were fast-paced and excited, but the room grew quiet when retired Rolls Royce engineer David Eames took to the podium to talk about his father,John Eames, who piloted the iconic aircraft.

The younger Eames told the crowd of a time when his father discovered a slight difference between the Concorde and its slower-flying cousins: the extreme speeds traveled by the Concorde cause a temperature fluctuation that in turn causes the aircraft to expand by as much as six inches during midflight. The vehicle contracts again when it returns to subsonic speeds.

And therein lies the rub.

During one such flight, the elder Eames had posted a list of landing instructions on the wall between the cockpit and the main cabin.

"When they were getting ready to land, he went back to get them, but the plane had contracted again and the list was stuck," said Eames. "He remembered everything on the list anyway, so it was not a problem."

The city of Atlanta was a natural choice for displaying the historic engine. It was here, in 1985, that special arrangements were made to allow Concorde to land at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. ASDL director Mavris commended the Rolls Royce team for choosing his lab as the exhibition site.

"The Aerospace Systems Design Lab and the Daniel Guggenheim School are honored to share this stunning piece of history with the next generation of engineers -- the architects of the future," said Mavris.

"The engine reminds us, daily, that there are no limits on what ambition and hard work can accomplish. In our classrooms, research, and labs, we are inspired by the genius the Olympus represents."

About Rolls-Royce North America 
Rolls-Royce has been present in North America for more than 100 years and today it employs more than 8,000 people across the North America region in 26 US states and six Canadian provinces. Its regional headquarters are located in Virginia, with major operations in Indiana, Massachusetts, California, Mississippi, and Canada.

The longtime GT-AE professors are among just 24 individuals elected to the prestigious honor, which AIAA confers upon "individuals in recognition of their notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics."

Clarke and Smith will be officially inducted during the 2016 Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala, to be held in June in Washington, DC.

“AIAA Honorary Fellows and Fellows represent the best of the aerospace community,” said AIAA President Jim Albaugh. “These individuals have advanced the state of the art of aerospace science and technology, making unique contributions to the profession."

Professor Clarke has made several important contributions in the areas of air traffic management, aircraft operations, and airline operations – the three key elements of the air transportation system – and has been recognized globally for developing, among other things, key analytical foundations for the Continuous Descent Arrival (CDA) and novel concepts for robust airline scheduling. Earlier this winter, he received the Commander’s Award for Public Service from the Army Science Board (ASB).

A noted expert in rotorcraft research, Professor Smith was recently named a Technical Fellow by the American Helicopter Society. Her research includes, but is not limited to advanced numerical methods and engineering analysis associated with unsteady fluid mechanics, applied to the interdisciplinary problems involving aeroelasticity or fluid-structure interaction.

On February 5 the team from the Space Systems Design Laboratory (SSDL) successfully underwent a pre-integration review conducted by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Air Force Research Lab (AFOSR/AFRL) which jointly run the University Nanosatellite Program.

The review ensures that the spacecraft is fully functional, at the system level, in a bench-top configuration. Now that the review is complete, final integration of the spacecraft components into the flight structure will begin. The next major milestone for Prox-1 is the pre-ship review, scheduled for May.

Prox-1 will be the first spacecraft built by Georgia Tech to be launched into space,” said Spencer, who served as a mission designer for the Mars Pathfinder during nearly 2 decades with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“We’ve built components before, but this is a Georgia Tech vehicle.”

Researched and tested by Spencer and his students in AE’s Space Systems Design Laboratory (SSDL),  the Prox-1 spacecraft was chosen for the launch by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s University Nanosatellite Program (UNP) during a system integration competition last year. The SSDL design trumped a field of 11 competitors.

Her pilot's license.

"I wanted to get it before I was 18, so I pretty much gave up violin lessons and severely cut down on human contact," says Gross, 19, now a GT-AE sophomore.

"My softball coach competed with my dance coach for practice time because I started spending all my free time at the airport. I stopped going out with friends on Friday night and started getting up really early to get flying time."

How early?

"4 a.m. " she says with a shrug of the shoulders.

"If the weather was good I could get in a couple hours of flying before I had to be in school. If it was bad, I went to school and studied until my first class."

Gross's determination paid off . Not only did the Ohio native earn her pilot's license before graduating high school, she was invited to help build a Rans Coyote plane by one of her flying mentors, and recently breezed through her pilot's license renewal. Along the way, she got into her first choice - Georgia Tech - where she snagged a coveted co-op job three weeks into her freshmen year.

Again, she shrugs her shoulders:

"I went to the AE Career Fair just to get practice talking to employers. I didn't have a [college] GPA and my resume didn't have anything really...well, except that I had a pilot's license and I'd built a plane...they thought that was pretty cool."

Not everyone always saw it that way.

"I think, to some people in high school, I was that crazy girl who just wanted to fly all the time. 'Well, I'm flying a plane while you're going to the mall. So who wins in that competition?'"

Thing is: there is no competition. Not externally. Katie Gross is so intensely focused on her own goals that the rest of the world quietly fades to background -- like the rolling farmlands and forests that stretch below her when she's flying back in Ohio.

She does get nervous, but, as anyone who knows her will tell you: it's more out of reverence than insecurity. She deeply respects the knowledge that others possess.

The first time she showed up at the Geauga County [Ohio] airport to begin her informal mentorship she was so nervous, she barely made a peep. Her mentors [retired engineer David Rigotti and pilot Tim Connor] did all the talking.

"I was 16 and I thought, somehow, I could break something, so I was afraid to touch things," she said.

"But Dave and Tim were really good about showing me how to do things [airplane maintenance] and then weaning me off their help. They pushed me in there to do it myself and I did."

Gross was also nervous the night before her first pilot's exam - a challenging written test. Though she had spent countless hours studying the Federal Aviation Regulations Aeronautical Information Manual (FAR AIM), she was stunned by how much there was to know.

"The FAA evaluators see exactly what you miss on your written test, and  they grill you on it in your oral. I've heard of some orals that go three, four, five hours. You can't just get by. They want you to know it all. Cold."

Gross earned an 84 on that test -- enough to qualify for the oral, but not enough to let her relax.

"On the oral, my evaluator was actually okay. The thing they liked was not that I knew all of the answers, but that I knew exactly where to find them. I had sticky notes all through the FAR AIM, and I knew where to go. "

(Gross says that same approach has helped her at Tech, where she frequently refers to herself as 'behind the curve' compared to her 'brilliant classmates.' She studies material intensely and never leaves a question unanswered in her own head. Those unanswered questions have a way of coming back to haunt.)

The third phase of her pilot's evaluation -- the flying test -- was, perhaps, the easiest. Gross had already logged more than the required 40 hours of flight time and was a fairly accomplished maintenance mechanic.

What did she obsess on? 

Details. Lots of details.

"You have to calculate a cross-country flight [a flight of more than 50 miles], using dead reckoning - no GPS or iPads -  to navigate," she said.

"You have to figure in the weather, the altitude, the headwinds, the tailwinds...and then, just to see if you know how to plan, they throw in a diversion [an unplanned destination]."

Gross doesn't remember much of that 1.5-hour flight  -- too nervous - but  she does remember how it ended.  "The instructor said 'Congratulations. You are now a licensed pilot.'"

A few weeks later, she turned 18.

The perks of having a pilot's license were not lost on Gross, by then a senior in high school. One of her pals at the airport - retired engineer and pilot Jim McDermott-  had given her full access to his Cesna, as long as she paid the insurance, performed the maintenance, and filled up the tank.

A sweeter deal than most teens get with the family car.

"So I remember once I flew to one of my away [softball]  games because it was so far away.  And another time, my mother wanted to go to New Jersey to see her father for Father's Day, but she was leaning against it because it would take 8 hours of driving each way.  I flew her there in 3 hours."

With her license out of the way, Gross was freed up to dive into another project that had her spending even more time at the airport: building an experimental plane with her mentor, Dave Rigotti.

The 700-pound, fabric-wrapped, tail wheel plane was completed right around the time she graduated.

"There was a lot of building, then taking things apart to re-drill a hole or realign a part. And then putting it back together again," she said.

"At the time I thought it was pretty tedious, but, when it was built, I could see that all of the work was worth it. It's a beautiful plane. And it was important. You really can't rush something like that. You have to get every component just right."

Sounds just like an engineer to us, so we had to ask: what do you plan to do with your Georgia Tech engineering education?

To this, Gross gave a ready smile and an answer that was clearly well thought-out:

"I'm the kind of person who sees six things, knows she can only do three, but chooses to do the six anyway," she said.

"So when I came to Georgia Tech, I had a choice between research, co-ops, and studying abroad. You can't do all of them, right? But that's what I decided to do."

Gross can already cross off two of those goals: she's completed one semester of her co-op, and she's done research work with three professors on subjects ranging from quad bots and quad copters to air traffic compliance.

A study-abroad semester will come in the fall of 2017.

And then?

" A lot of people have said I should become a pilot, but that's not the plan. Grad school will probably be next, but when I get out and work, I think I will get a day job as an engineer so I keep flying for fun."

Like the larger, more established Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRIs), the IRCs will bring together researchers from different disciplines to address topics of strategic importance to Georgia Tech.

C-STAR was designated as a Type II IRC.

Established in 2013 under the direction of GT-AE professor Robert Braun, C-STAR has focused faculty from several disciplines on space-related research and the growth of Georgia's space industry. The Center is actively engaged in partnerships with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Georgia Department of Economic Development Center of Innovation for Aerospace, and the Georgia Space Grant Consortium.

The IRI's will continue to articulate Georgia Tech's strategic research priorities, addressing broad societal challenges. The seven newly created IRCs will join Centers in playing a more active role in leading specific teams and responses.

In addition to C-STAR, the EVPR named the following entities as IRC's:

Type I

• GVUCenter Director: Prof. Keith Edwards, reporting through CoC
• Center for Regenerative Engineering & Medicine
  Director: Prof. Johnna Temenoff, reporting to IBB
• Supply Chain and Logistics Institute,
  Directors: Prof.’s Montreuil and Savelsburgh, reporting through ISyE/COE
• Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems,
  Directors: Prof.’s Keskinocak and Swann, reporting through IPaT

Type II

• Center for Immuno Engineering,
  Director: Prof. Krishnendu Roy, reporting through IBB
• Center for Urban Innovation, 
  Director: Prof. Jennifer Clark, reporting through IAC

It's complicated. 
And it took him five years of painstaking research to frame it.

So the first thing Walker did when he entered the 3MT competition this September was to tweak the title. "Leaving Ancient Rocket Engines Behind" was the name of the talk he gave on November 18, the final leg of the competition. The substance of his thesis was likewise boiled down to a veritable haiku.

"It would not be in anyone's interests for me to give a nitty gritty technically detailed talk," he said.

"And giving me a three-minute limit completely forced me to look at my thesis and pull out those things that will have the most impact."

That approach -- and his obvious passion for the subject -- did the trick for Walker, who took home the top prize, a $2,000 travel grant. Joining Walker at the medal stand last week were fellow GT grad students Marian Hettiaratchi and Pamela Grothe, the second and third-place winners, respectively.

Inaugurated at the University of Queensland in Australia, the competition challenges Ph.D. students to use just three minutes to explain their dissertations such that someone with no knowledge of the subject would understand. This is the first year that the 3MT competition has come to Georgia Tech.

At its core, Walker's dissertation focuses on electrical propulsion as an alternative to chemical fuels for the future of deep space travel. The latter technology he dubs "ancient rocket engines."

"In chemical rocket engines, the energy and the hot gas needed to make thrust come from the same source - the fuel. The problem with rocket fuel is you can only cram so much in before it wants to explode on you... Plus, the deeper you want to go into space, the more rocket fuel you need to get you there. And the more rocket fuel you carry, the more weight you have to carry and you need more rocket fuel to carry it...It becomes an impossible situation..."

"In an electric rocket engine we're able to separate the source of the hot gas from the energy source and in doing so we can create a very fuel efficient rocket engine. So, for instance, if we have an electric engine rocket going to the moon, we can carry up to 3.5-times more cargo than one with a chemical rocket engine...."

"So, we've had a great deal of success with electric engines, but we've also had some unpredicted behavior with Hall Effect Thrusters when they get into space...what we're finding from my dissertation research is that the great steel chambers that we test these rocket engines in actually force the Hall Effect Thrusters to operate in a way they wouldn't operate if they were in space. The hope is that if we can identify what's causing this unpredicted behavior, we can prevent it...and push our rocket technology closer to deep space travel."

Find out more about Walker's dissertation thesis.

Next Adventure: I will be working as a flight control systems engineer at Textron Aviation in Wichita, Kansas. I'll also be earning my masters in aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech through the Distance Learning program under the guidance of Dr. Prasad.

Did you have any previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?
My first internship was at an automotive company in Grasslake, Michigan. I got a lot of production quality experience there. I also did some research for Dr. Costello --basic testing of a new wind turbine - my sophomore year. Then, I got a call out of the blue from Sikorsky, asking if I wanted to do a summer internship. They had gotten my resume at one of the career fairs and my research experience made me stand out. I worked in their flight controls group, and from there, I got into research with Dr. Prasad.

What about your next adventure are you most looking forward to?
I'm excited to be able to apply stuff I learned in class and from research. And Textron is a great company. They are sponsoring my graduate program and they are even helping me get my pilot's license. I'm fortunate. Not everyone gets what they want straight out of college, but I got the perfect job.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help you achieve your goal?
The professors - and everybody, really -- are so supportive. Once you get past the idea that you are 'just a student', you see that they are all willing to help you. And I mean really help you. I didn't know a thing about applying to grad school so I went to Dr. Jagoda. He didn't know me, but that didn't matter. He helped me. And I think that that's true for all of the professors I've met. No one's ever too busy to help you.

What advice would you give to underclassmen who would like to follow the same path?
Two things. One, do research. It's really important. Two, talk to a faculty or an academic advisor if you are freaking out over the work. At the end of my freshman year, I was thinking of transferring to ISYE because I just didn't think I could learn everything in the curriculum. I sent an email to Dr. Clarke, and he told me not to worry. He offered to give me some work in his lab. He even offered to Skype me so I could talk about it. That meant everything to me. And the thing is, he was returning my email at 2 in the morning. That's dedication.

Chelsea Fuller, BSAE '15

New Adventure: Aerodynamics engineer at the Boeing Company in St. Louis

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience?
I completed three co-ops at Sikorsky and an internship at Boeing last summer. The first one, in Connecticut, was doing rotorcraft design for Sikorsky, which was great. I learned a lot. The next two were in West Palm Beach, Florida, where I got to do flight testing. I loved that: if there was something wrong with your plane, you got to go down to the hangar and fix it. Then you get to see it fly. And that's why I got into aerospace - to see if fly.

Most looking forward to...
At Boeing I know that I'm going to be challenged and I like that. I think the projects I'll be working on will push the technology envelope beyond where I've been before, and that's exciting. Also, the company is so large that it seems like I might be able to work abroad at some point. It's nothing immediate and there are no guarantees, but it's possible. I have to figure out how to make it happen.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
Georgia Tech helps by attracting such important industry leaders to campus. The Career Services help you learn by exposing you to the field. I didn't really know Sikorsky until I went for an interview with them. And I learned so much from my time at Sikorsky.

Advice
I would advise anyone to intern or co-op. It's such a complement to your educational experience. Really invaluable. On your internships you see how the theories all play out and you're learning what kind of impact aerospace engineering has on the world.

Daniel C. Garmendia, Ph.D. AE '15

Next Adventure: After spending the last 12 years here at Georgia Tech, I am moving to Maryland to take a job with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. I will be the senior professional staff for a new team.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?
Over the course of my time at Georgia Tech and at ASDL [Aerospace Systems Design Lab] I worked on several projects that involved very different contractors. Support for my dissertation came from the NASA Graduate Student Research Project fellowship, out of Langley. I worked on the hybrid wing body aircraft, focusing on design optimization under control authority constraints.

Most looking forward to...
I've lived in Atlanta since 2003, so I'm itching to try out a new city. And, while I've gotten to do some great things as a post-doc at ASDL, I'm ready to shed the poor graduate student life.  Workwise, I'm getting to do something I haven't looked at for awhile - ballistic defense - which is also exciting.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
My undergraduate and graduate years at Georgia Tech really taught me to work hard and to put in the hours to get work done. There were a lot of late nights. My doctoral program taught me how to think for myself, define my own problems, and design new solutions. It was particularly helpful to have Dr. Mavris as my advisor, because he was personally aware of NASA's interest in the hybrid wing and he helped me to make that connection.

Advice
Throughout my time at Tech, I had a strong social network -- people I knew through the marching and concert band and through Kappa Kappa Psi, the service organization associated with the band. It makes the whole experience easier when you have people to turn to, to complain to, to get support. Especially during the Ph.D. It's such a grind. The other thing is, you should learn to be humbled, especially at the Ph.D. level because there's a lot of knowledge out there. You can't know it all. Passing a test on it is not the same as knowing it. 

Sean B. Chait, MSAE '15

New Adventure: Guidance navigation & control engineer for Orbital ATK in Virginia. I'll be working on Cygnus, their automated resupply vehicle that's used for the Space Station.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience?
I've been doing research at Georgia Tech since my sophomore year, when I did large system optimization research with Dr. German. Later, I joined Dave Spencer 's team, where I did guidance navigation and served as the project manager for Prox 1. For the last six months, I've been working as an attitude determination and control engineer on the LightSail B project, designing the algorithms that control it and writing the flight software. With the support of the NASA Space Technology Research Fellow (NSTRF) program, I also did two summer research internships at NASA Marshall as a graduate student. Last summer I worked at Ball Aerospace in Colorado.

Most looking forward to...
There are two ways to go in my field - concept development and implementation. My biggest interest at this point is in implementation. I want to build the hardware on a spacecraft and see it fly. And that's what I'll be able to do.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
The coursework at GT-AE is very good, very rigorous. I mean you might complain as an undergraduate - I did - but you are getting the fundamentals that will allow you to be more effective in the long run. The other thing about AE is that you have access to a lot of hands-on research projects, like Prox 1, where you put your knowledge to the test. It's trial by fire, because sometimes you're off. But when you are applying for jobs, industry likes to see that you know how to bring your ideas to execution.

Advice
I would say that working on hands-on projects or applications -- either through research or through an extra curricular activity - is the way to go. It helps you to specialize, to figure out what you are really interested in doing and what you don't like. And having that experience, I believe, helped me get above the competition when I was applying for jobs.

Alejandro E. Trujillo, BSAE '15

Next Adventure: After I graduate, I have two internships lined up before I enter graduate school next fall. The first one is at NASA Huntsville, where I will work as a propulsion technology development engineer. The second is in LA, where I will be working as a build reliability engineer at SpaceX. These are the perfect fit for me, because I plan to follow a space track - either propulsion or mission operations - when I go to grad school.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?
I have worked a lot with Dr. Gunter. First, I worked with him on a team that put together a six-rotored drone that was equipped with Lidar imaging to produce 3D imaging. The second one is the RANGE project, a cubesat that his team is building. I've worked on the mission design team. I also did an internship at the Draper Lab in Houston, where they were adding higher fidelity aerodynamics to one of the navigation tools.

Most looking forward to...
I am definitely ready to get a feel for how all of the rigorous coursework and demanding research plays out in industry. These internships will introduce me to how it all gets incorporated on the job. With graduate school, I'm excited about taking my education to the next level, where I will be building things.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
I think a lot of students talk about how hard it is here -- the workload, the demands. I feel like that's the most important part. I won't have three exams in one day after I leave here, but I think those exams served their purpose. The work is hard so we are well-trained. The professors are doing it so we'll be prepared - not to torture us.

Advice
Get involved. I mean freshman year or as soon as possible. Even if you ask a professor to do research and they turn you down because you don't have the experience yet. You'll get experience asking. I know one thing: you won't get as far if you are just doing the homework.

Matthew J. LeVine, Ph.D AE '15

Next Adventure: I will be teaching aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech's Lorraine campus in France. I'm applying for post-doc positions now so that I can get some more teaching experience before I pursue other teaching jobs.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?
My doctoral research at ASDL was with the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Environment and Energy. I looked at the environmental impact of aviation on the fleet level, focusing on the noise contours around airports. There are lots of new engineering technologies and novel engine configurations that can impact the noise, emissions, and fuel burn. I worked with Dr. Kirby, the chief of the civil aviation division at ASDL, and the FAA. I also got involved with the [Georgia Tech] Center for Teaching & Learning (CETL) which is how the opportunity to teach in France became real.

Most looking forward to...
I'm very excited to go to France. It will be like the study-abroad semester that I didn't take as an undergraduate, with the only difference being: I think I'll appreciate it more now. I'm also looking forward to teaching the smaller classes at the GT-Lorraine campus. Beyond that, I am excited about exploring new problems as a post-doc.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
I earned a duel undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering and music from Georgia Tech and Emory. I went on to get my masters and doctorate here. Having said that, some of the best teachers I've ever had are the ones I've had at GT-AE. I've adopted some of their teaching methods and strategies. They put a lot of expectations on you - no one's rolling out the red carpet for you. But they also give you opportunities. Dr. Mavris gave me some great opportunities, and it was up to me to pursue them.

Advice
Don't be afraid to fail. That's one big problem in academia sometimes: students care too much about failing. What I've found is: you don't know what you don't know until you've failed trying. So speak up in class, go to office hours, put yourself out there. Because if you worry too much about how smart you appear, you'll never know what you're missing.

Matthew Owczarski, BSAE '15

Next Adventure: Quality Engineer at Lockheed Martin

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience?
I interned at Bell Helicopter for a semester.

Most looking forward to?
I am excited about being able to work up close with the C-130. I will be analyzing possible defects, minimizing their likelihood, reworking the parts and assemblies. Eventually, I'd like to move into their Engineering Leadership Development program, because I am really interested in trying different jobs.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
It's great to be a student at Georgia Tech because all of the biggest, most impressive companies come to our career fairs and reach out to our students with opportunities. I gained experience with interviewing before I had to ace an interview.

Advice
What they say about Georgia Tech is actually true. Sleep, work on your grades, or have a social life: you can only choose two. I chose grades and a social life. The sleep can happen later.

Sarah E. Dailey, BSAE '15

Next Adventure: Systems Engineer at Lockheed Martin, Sunnyvale, CA

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience?
I came in as a transfer from the University of North Georgia, so the time I could devote to outside internships was limited. Still, I interned at Lockheed Martin in Marietta through their structural engineering program and  I worked on the C-130. I also worked with Dr. Spencer doing day-in-the-life testing for Prox 1.

Most looking forward to...
To  be honest, I cannot wait to move to California. I'm already planning trips to the national parks. I'm also looking forward to working with Lockheed again, because my experience as an intern was so great. The company culture is supportive. My colleagues didn't look for shortcomings; they are always working for answers.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help? I like to think of myself as an organized person, but Tech forced me to take it up a notch. I got involved in extra extracurriculars - the Georgia Tech Dance Company and Tau Beta Pi - which helped me, as a transfer student, to find people to hang out with and to study with. But they also forced me to keep organized.

Advice
It's easy to get overwhelmed with all of the work and all of the things they want you to learn at Tech. Sometimes, you think "how can I learn all of that?" But you have to take a breath, think about the big picture and schedule yourself. What do you need to get done today? What project needs your attention now? Finals will come when finals come. Do your best today.

Alain "Paul" Nyamsi, BSAE '15

Next Adventure: In February, I will begin a full-time rotation as a senior management trainee at XBO Logistics in Chicago. That will allow me to work with different parts of the company, ultimately allowing me to join management. Right now, I'm working with them as a solutions engineer.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?
I worked with Prof. Prasad the CMAPSS 40K airplane engine. We are focusing on the high pressure turbine section. If you vary select parameters in the controller, you can extend the life of the engine.

Most looking forward to...
I am very excited about the variety of experiences I will have as a manager trainee at XBO. I will have rotations in very different parts of the company - finances, operations, engineering. And all of them will allow me to apply the critical thinking skills that I've developed as an engineer.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
Georgia Tech is very challenging, and that's why I came here. I had offers at other schools, but I knew that the only way you will improve, intellectually, is if you challenge yourself. And I knew Georgia Tech was the most challenging -- and that aerospace was very hard. I have worked at FedX while I've been at Georgia Tech. Sometimes, I get off the 2 a.m. - 9 a.m. shift and come straight to school, where I must train myself to focus on new material. It has made me stronger. I've learned to be more structured in my approach to problem-solving and to be better at managing my time. Every challenge has made me more marketable.

Advice
The most important thing is: know what you want to accomplish and put yourself in a position to achieve it. That's why I came to Georgia Tech: I wanted to put myself in the position to be successful. My father [Alain P. Nyamsi] has always told me that [life's] not about making excuses; it's about getting things done. Nothing great will be easy. Every time you are challenged, you will improve, so never shy away from challenges. I have found all of this to be true during my time at Georgia Tech.

Franklin "Drew" Turbeville, BSAE '15

Next Adventure: In January, I will go to Purdue University to begin work on my masters in aerospace engineering. I will be focusing on aerodynamics.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?
I had five co-op rotations at HEICO Aerospace  where I focused on new product development. I also did an internship at Gulfstream, working as a structural test engineer. And I did research with Dr. Hodges [structures],Dr. Sankar [aerodynamics], Dr. Komerath[aerodynamics] and Dr. Smith [aeroelasticity]. Each time I did research, I learned something new. Sometimes, it was that I didn't want to pursue that area of engineering. It just wasn't for me. When I did experimental research with Dr. Komerath, focusing on slung loads, I really liked it, so I continued. I also liked working on modeling the aerodynamics of hypersonic missiles with Dr. Smith.

Most looking forward to...
First and foremost, I have to say that my girlfriend, Amy Pierce, who is also a Tech grad
[BME '14] is already living in Indiana, so that makes the move a lot more attractive. I'm also excited because I'll be working on a Mach 6 wind tunnel. It'll be a unique experience.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
I think Tech challenges you to get out of your comfort zone. I came to Tech so focused on co-ops and I had no interest in research.  I was of the opinion, after high school, that I'd complete my undergraduate degree and that would be it. But once I started doing research, it led me in different directions. It led me to what I am doing now. And it's pretty exciting.

Advice
Especially for freshmen: don't be afraid to bite off more than you think you can chew. Get involved in building a rocket or designing a spacecraft. With a lot of the extra-curriculars, you can always back off if it doesn't fit, but you can't beat the experience.

Angelica M. Baker, BSAE '15

Next adventure: Mechanical Experimental Equipment Test Engineer, NASA

Did you have any previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?

I was accepted into NASA's Pathway Internship program, so I did four semesters of co-ops at NASA Stennis.

Most looking forward to...
The fact that I will get to work on the test stand for adjusting the rockets for the SLS (Space Launch System). I will be in the control room.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help you achieve your goal?
My jet propulsion and thermodynamics classes -- they were tough, but they gave me a lot of good knowledge that I brought to my internships, and, now, my job. Also, senior design was excellent, because you have to learn how to present your ideas before people who can ask some tough questions.

Advice
Obviously, study hard. Also: apply for everything. That's what I did. NASA was my dream since I was in kindergarten, so I applied to every NASA internship I could find.

Benjamin L. Grisel, BSAE '15

Next Adventure: In December and January, I will travel through Europe. I plan to make a special visit to Norway, too. It's a place that has always interested me.  In October, I will begin the U.S. Army's Basic Officer Leadership Course in Fort Rucker Alabama. After that, the plan is to go to flight school where I will be training on CH 47 (Chinook) helicopters. I can't wait.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?
I participated in extra training that is sponsored by the Army. I did a parachute training class at Fort Benning and an air assault class, which is the Army's way of teaching you about helicopters. I got to repel out of a Black Hawk helicopter. That was cool. We also had a 12-mile ruck march...

Most looking forward to...
I'm looking forward to the first time I am able to fly by myself. I've been wanting to fly since I was a kid. I can't wait to take the controls.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
When I applied to the National Guard in Nebraska - which is where I'll be stationed - it took them two weeks to get back to me. [laughs] When they did, they said they were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. They don't unusually get candidates coming from such a prestigious school. It pretty much blew away the competition. Everything I learned here at Georgia Tech will give me the ability to deal with complications that come up when we're actually flying. For instance, in a helicopter, when you pull the cyclic left, you bank left. They'll tell everyone that in training, but I know why. So if something messes up, I'll know more about what we need to do.

Advice
Balance. You gotta have it. When I first got to Tech, I studied day-in, day-out. After awhile, I noticed my performance was slipping, because I wasn't motivated. I wasn't mountain biking or doing any of the physical activities that I love. That's when I decided I would plan to have a certain amount of free time each week. I would figure out how much time it took to get the work done for my classes, and then I would allot myself some time for fun. It was a little trial-and-error, of course, but it worked out great.

Ryan A. Quinn, BSAE '15

Next Adventure: A six-month internship at SpaceX in Hawthorne, CA, followed up by a doctoral program in space systems design. At SpaceX, I will be working as a vehicle engineer for payload fairing - that's the protective shell that goes over the spacecraft during its launch.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience?
I came to Georgia Tech because I wanted the co-op and research experiences. My first internship was with Silicon Creations, a Suwanee-based semi-conductor company where I did software electronics testing. I did another internship as a structural engineer consultant at ATA Engineering in San Diego. There, I got to experience engineering from the perspectives of analysis, design, and testing. It was perfect. Last summer, I was a mechanical design engineer working on the robotics breaking and mobility systems of the Mars 2020 mission at JPL.  And, coming up, I'll be working at SpaceX. My research experience has also been spread out across very different projects. For instance, working with Dr. Rimoli, I published a conference paper in structural engineering. Working with a design team outside of AE, I helped redesign a refreshable Braille display that won an award. All of it, taken together, has given me a good grasp on systems engineering and confirms my decision to pursue space systems design in graduate school.

Most looking forward to...
I've always been interested in launch vehicles so getting experience [at SpaceX] designing a launch vehicle will be great. I'll be working for a company that is fast-paced and expects me to contribute.

As far as graduate school, I am looking forward to joining a team that will be building a small spacecraft. My senior design class introduced me to that, and I found it very exciting. I expect that that experience will prepare me well for wherever I go...JPL, SpaceX, or the NASA astronaut training program.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
Every opportunity I pursued at Georgia Tech prepared me to be successful with another opportunity. And the reason is that, if I did well in one area -- like research or an internship -- people always wanted to see me continue, to succeed. So when I finished with my ATA internship, someone there suggested I try JPL. And when I finished up with JPL, I was put in contact with SpaceX. The funny thing is, I had applied for an internship at SpaceX two years ago and failed the interview. The reason, I know, is that I wasn't ready, hadn't taken the right classes. This time, I'd done the work, and I was ready. I can't wait.

Advice
My experience is not unique. I pursued research and co-op opportunities that started out small, but became significant building blocks over time. So I would advise new students to jump in and start doing research and co-opping right away. Your experiences will grow more sophisticated and more influential over time.

Mark Mote, BSAE '15

Next Adventure: MS degree at GT-AE
Graduate Research Assistantship with Dr. Eric Feron.Under the auspices of an NSF grant, we will be building a fully networked robotics lab here at Georgia Tech.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience?
I've done research with Dr. Prasad, and also with Dr. Feron. I also did an internship at ISAE Ensma in France last summer.

Most looking forward to?
I'm excited about doing something that's never been done before, and about being able to really exercise creativity in my research. As an undergraduate, you are judged by the quantity of the information you take in. In graduate school, it's the quality of the ideas you produce. In my graduate program, I'll be able to see the full depth of the subjects that interest me.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
It was all about being surrounded by the right people. The students, the internship, the research -- they all gave me an opportunity to push myself.

Advice
Start looking for research opportunities early, and don't do it just because you think it will look good on your resume. Find that subject that you are really interested in and then find someone who is just as passionate about pursuing it as well.

Nikolaus L. Thorell, MSAE '15

Next Adventure: I've enrolled in language school in the Swiss Alps so that I can become fully bilingual. After I finish, I will return to the United States to work in systems engineering.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?
My graduate research has been with Dr. Komerath. I have assisted him with work on the reverse flow of the retreating rotor blades and also on slung loads and divergent speeds. My own research has focused on vortex flow over a highly swept delta wing. I completed a summer co-op at NASA Ames, too.

Most looking forward to...
I am excited about pursuing French, which I learned in high school but have not pursued since then. I think becoming bilingual will give me a more wide-ranging perspective on lots of things, including how I tackle engineering problems. It's not just learning a language, but, also, learning another way to think and speak about the world. I am also really look forward to doing systems engineering because you can apply it to solve any problem. I won't be pigeon-holed by it.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
When I was looking for graduate programs, I did a search for the top schools in fluid mechanics and refined my search for experimental work. Georgia Tech was the top of the list. It was a great choice. Georgia Tech has given me a better sense of the big picture. In experimental work, which I've done here, you get to design, refine, run, and analyze your own tests, which means you really have to understand how everything works.

Advice
I would say that the most important advice is to know what your priorities are at any given time. Then, if something comes along that you would otherwise miss, you'll take advantage of it. You never know if you'll get another chance. I took advantage of doing a co-op at NASA Ames. I am glad I did experimental work at Georgia Tech. And, right now, I am glad that there's an opening in my life so that I can study another language and culture before I go into the workforce.

Tanish Himani, BSAE '15

Next Adventure: Joining the lab of Dr. E. Glenn Lightseyas a graduate student.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience?
I interned at the Jacobs ESSA Group in Huntsville, where I did data reviews of hot-fire RS-25 rocket engines.

Most looking forward to...
It will be great to work with someone with as much experience as Dr. Lightsey, working on real satellites - from concept to execution. Satellites can do a lot of good science without requiring a super-huge budget.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
The coursework is really challenging. If you can handle the coursework here, you can handle anything they throw at you in the real world. Also, I got so much out of my orbital mechanics class, with Professor Spencer. He has a ton of experience -- with NASA and JPL - so when he explained something, he could tell you how the theory goes and how it actually works.

Advice
Find out what you are passionate about and work it from every angle. Don't stop at what you learn in class. Find other problems, create new code, or find other applications that will help you understand the concept. You can sleep after you graduate.

Michael Staab, MSAE'15

Next Adventure: Spacecraft Operations Engineer for Cassini Mission, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience?
I did work with Dr. Mavris focusing on manufacturing influences on the cost of producing launch vehicles. A lot of the materials that will be used in future launch vehicles are new, lighter, composites that haven't been used  before. We looked at manufacturing data to make some cost predictions.

Most looking forward to...
I'll be working in the spacecraft operations center for Cassini, which will be really neat because not many people get to do that. In fact, I'll be one of just four people in the world who will be capable of flying the Cassini spacecraft. That project will be finished in 2017, when Cassini is scheduled to burn up. Then I'm looking at Mars 2020 or the Europa Mission to Jupiter...all of this will put me in the right place if I ever get the opportunity to be an astronaut.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
I had an awesome undergraduate experience in Kansas, but I can truly say that when I came to graduate school at Georgia Tech it was a completely different atmosphere. It was far more rigorous. I learned how to manage multiple projects. They pushed me to see how much I was really capable of doing without imploding. (Laughs). I think most people don't get a chance to get pushed that hard in life.

Advice
Academics are good, but you have got to get out and do extracurriculars, get involved. I was one of the founding members of the K-17 [rocket] project, a member of the Triathlon Club, a Graduate Senator, and a member of AIAA. It all shaped me. Academics can only take you so far -- and the academics do push you at Tech -- but if you want to succeed, you have to get your hands dirty. You have to get out there and design things.

Ryan Gibbons, BSAE'15

Next Adventure: In February, I will report to the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, Florida to begin flight school. That will give me broad training on flying military jets. After 2 years, I will be sent to squadron where I will get trained on a specific vehicle. In my case, that's an FA-18.

Previous co-op, internship, or research experience?
Because I knew I wanted to pursue flight school, I attended summer programs sponsored by the Navy.  

Most looking forward to...
That's easy: I've been dying to fly jets since I was a little guy. And, now, the government will pay for me to learn. It's a dream come true.

How did your educational experience at GT-AE help?
The classes I've taken in AE are more in-depth than what they will teach us in flight school, because, there, they'll have to explain aerodynamics to history majors. That will help me, some. But what really helps is the fact that Georgia Tech really taught me how to study and how to work hard. Work ethic will take me a long way.

Advice
Don't get discouraged. Work hard. Do what it takes. When I came to Georgia Tech I thought I was pretty smart, but the difficulty of the material took me by surprise. My first semester I did pretty poorly. So I got tutors, worked harder, and spent more time on the material. Over time, the school changed my entire mindset. I started out taking everything at face value, and no further. I did the homework, learned the equations, and memorized what was in front of me. But over time, I started questioning what I saw. I wanted to try different numbers, test different equations, and to use what I'd learned to come up with new solutions. I started thinking like an engineer. That's the best way to put it. And it didn't come over night.

On Dec. 8, Hodara was recruited to present his work, "Turbulence Closure for Static and Dynamic Stall in the Transitional Regime" before scientists at NASA Ames Research Center as a part of the regular Advance Modeling and Simulation seminar series.

"It was great practice for my doctoral defense," said Hodara, whose research under Dr. Marilyn Smith has focused on transition and turbulence modeling for rotorcraft applications.

"But more than that, it was a fantastic opportunity to meet so many of the people whose research papers I've read over and over again. Really, these are the people who've been framing the field."

Hodara's work ultimately seeks to improve rotorcraft speed and efficiency by better defining the performance conditions that prevent it from traveling effectively at higher speeds.

"We need simple models to predict rotorcraft performance at high speed, but, first, we need to understand exactly what is going on," he said.

Employing high-fidelity numerical simulations, Hodara hopes to develop such an accurate understanding of the problem that he will be able to develop simpler, less costly models to resolve it. He has teamed up with researchers at the University of Maryland who are conducting the experimental work, thus allowing Hodara to focus on the CFD analysis.

"This research holds a lot of promise. If we can get helicopters to fly faster, we will be able to respond more quickly and successfully in rescues and other situations," he said.

Joachim Hodara is a Ph.D. candidate and graduate research assistant. Before coming to Georgia Tech, he received two M.S. degrees from Cranfield University and Ecole Centrale de Lille. His honors and awards include a Best Paper Award (aerodynamics) at the 71st AHS Forum (2015), two Vertical Flight Foundation scholarships (2013 and 2014), the Southern Regional Lichten Award (2014) and the Director’s prize for best performance in the M.S. at Cranfield University (2012).

Find out more about Hodara's research.

Now a principal engineer within the Aerospace Corporation’s National Systems Group, Fawcett is quick to point out that his meteoric success at Tech was fueled by one simple thing.

“I just kept going, putting in a lot of hours to get that PhD, because there was more to learn about airplane design and I wanted to learn it,” he said during a March 27 visit to campus.

“Unfortunately, when I graduated, the bottom had temporarily fallen out of that industry, so I didn’t get a job designing airplanes. And I’ve never worked with airplanes since.”

But don’t look to Fawcett for regrets. Turning this early career obstacle into a launching pad for success is just one of the five lessons he shared with us.

1. Don’t assume your current career plan is the only path to enjoyment. Keep your focus flexible.

“When I couldn’t get a job doing airplane design [with a PhD] it was very frustrating at first. This was my passion. I’d planned it since high school. I was set on working in each of the subsystem areas so that I could eventually become the chief engineer of a major design effort.”

The original plans didn’t work out. But reality worked out even better.

“I decided to not get too wrapped up with what I wasn’t doing,” he said.

“I took a job at Aerospace doing work on launch vehicles and was dubbed the proverbial ‘rocket scientist.’ I began to see it as an adventure. Yeah, I’d studied the aerodynamic design of low-speed vehicles and they wanted me to work on high speed ones, but it was still a real job, and it was still engineering.”

Accepting that adventure has allowed Fawcett, a Florida native, to put down roots in Los Angeles , Colorado Springs, and Chantilly, Virginia (just outside Washington, D.C.) It has also given him a chance to work on some of the most exciting aerospace projects of our time, including the Titan IV program, where he provided critical aerodynamic analysis.

“I’ve been able to work on launch systems from concept to design, doing cost analysis, risk assessments, testing,” he said.

“None of it involved airplane design, and I couldn’t be happier.”

2. Look for a workplace that’s as flexible as you are.

Ambitious by nature, Fawcett has always kept his focus sharp by looking for new professional opportunities. He found those opportunities in the Aerospace Corporation, where he has held nine different job titles in the past 23 years.

“I’m not saying that if you come to work at Aerospace Corporation you have to be ready to change jobs all of the time, or even that you would have that opportunity,” he noted.

“But if you bring a good fundamental education to your work [there], and you are driven, there’s so much you can do. Some of my colleagues have remained in their departments for decades because it’s what they love. And that’s great. But for me, the ability to take on new challenges has been great.”

3. A doctorate can open a lot of doors.

“If you have the curiosity and the drive, earning a PhD is worth it,” he said.

“All employers have check-lists of qualities that they want to see in their top players. At a highly technical company like Aerospace, having a Ph.D. provides an extra edge to help put you at the top of their consideration for the loftier jobs. Colleagues don’t

ask you to prove yourself when you have a doctorate because they know that you’ve already gone the distance, tackling the hard problems that took you years to solve. Your depth has been tested. If you don’t have a Ph.D., and you are looking to move up, I would expect to see evidence of your tenacity and accomplishment somewhere in your work.”

None of this suggests that a PhD should rest on his laurels, he notes.

“I may not be doing all of the grinding calculations now, but I’ve got to be knowledgeable enough to know when those calculations need to be done and savvy enough to analyze them when they are completed. It’s a different level of challenge now, but the same values of hard work and attention to detail are what count.”

4. If you have a professional goal that’s a little outside the box, put yourself in the position to pursue it. Then: work hard and plan harder.

While at Georgia Tech, Fawcett took almost enough courses to earn a minor in international affairs. His interest in the subject never entirely disappeared, even as he was climbing the corporate ladder at Aerospace.

So when he heard that his company offered a seldom-utilized Brookings Institute Congressional Fellowship, Fawcett was intrigued.

“I researched it, like any good engineer -- got the names of the three previous employees who’d done the fellowship, and asked them to tell me about it,” he said.

“Because I had just been made manager of a new department that I’d created, I figured out the best time for me to do the fellowship so that my department would have minimal disruption. And, then, I walked into the vice president’s office with a plan.”

The result? An Aerospace Corporation-funded, year-long Brookings Institute fellowship in the office of Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, where the erstwhile airplane designer was responsible for tracking issues, developing recommendations, and pursuing legislation in the areas of housing, the environment, manufacturing, and Chinese currency manipulation.

“If I’d walked into another VP’s office, I might have gotten another answer. I know that. But I did my homework, and I was able to convince my employer that this would help the company in our dealings with the federal government. It has. And it’s also been one of the most exciting opportunities of my career.”

5. Strong communication skills – oral and written – are a must

“It is amazing how often I see extremely talented engineers who cannot communicate - whether it is a technical paper, a point paper, an email, or a briefing. The ones who truly shine are the ones who can speak or write about a complex issue in very simple terms or with very common analogies. Senior leaders and decision makers don't have technical backgrounds that span every field, and in many cases don’t have a technical background at all. So when an engineer only uses specific technical jargon, he will have only limited success. The ones who describe complex issues using simple language are the ones who find themselves in front of those senior leaders time and time again.”

Hisham Ali, Brett Hiller, and Eugina Mendez Ramos were selected to receive the prestigious scholarships, worth about $90,000 in total, sponsored by the  Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Doctoral students Hisham Ali and Brett Hiller received Sloan Fellowships, which afford recipients an annual $10K stipend to complete their graduate studies, plus another $10K to cover professional development expenses, including books, journals, professional travel and research costs.

"Hisham has outstanding scholarly potential and is an outstanding candidate for this award," said Dr. Robert Braun, Ali's faculty advisor.

Eugina Mendez Ramo received the Georgia Tech University Center of Exemplary Mentoring (GT-UCEM) scholarship, which will provide her with a $10,000 stipend to pay for professional development expenses.

Hiller's and Ramos's advisor, Regents Professor Dimitri Mavris, was proud but not surprised by the recognition received by his proteges.

"Brett and Eugina are both hard-working, very dedicated students who show a good deal of initiative and creativity in their work," said Mavris. "It's great to see them rewarded with something that will  help them go even further."

The Sloan Foundation Scholarship seeks to increase the number of outstanding engineering Ph.D. graduates from under-represented populations. It provides three years of support for students who have recently completed the Ph.D. Qualifying/ Preliminary exams.

As the chair of the “Government Investments Enabling Advancement of In-space Propulsion” panel at AIAA’s recent Propulsion and Energy Forum 360 (July 27-29), Walker brought together several industry and government experts for a robust discussion of the future.  All seemed to agree: market pressures must be incorporated into any innovation strategy.

“Competition in the global space-propulsion market continues to increase as industry continues to invest in technology and strategy and agencies are using technology programs to push the boundaries,” Walker said.

“It is very important to align the focus of government-funded technology with the needs, requirements, and commercial opportunities of industry. This will support the critical commercial infusion and eventual sustainability of in-space propulsion technology developed with government funding.”

Joining Walker in the AIAA panel were Google + Skybox Imaging’s chief engineer Jonny Dyer; the Institute for Defense Analyses’ director of science and technology policy Dr. Mark Lewis; Space Systems Loral’s advanced solar electric propulsion programs manager Peter Lord; Aerojet Rocketdyne’s executive director for advanced in-space systems Roger Myers; and NASA’s senior technical officer for the Space Technology Directorate Dr. Jeffrey Sheehy.

Although early investments in space-propulsion systems have bolstered national defense and space-exploration programs, the emergence of public-private partnerships has made the market more complicated, according Myers.

One thing thwarting advances in propulsion technology? The need for the investment to take into account both the cost and the risk of the new technology.

“If it can’t do that,” Myers said, “The system will most likely be rejected.”

Myers pointed out that time-tested technology holds the edge for approvals while the potential benefits of new technology are overshadowed by system uncertainty. Myers said electric propulsion systems and solar electric power systems receive the majority of investment dollars.

Investment in this area is also impeded by the size of the market and the time it takes to bring a new idea to market. The longer the development period, the more likely it is to fail.

Dyer pointed out that the delays inevitably make it harder to market up and coming innovations:

“We are flying 50-year-old technology exclusively, with thrusters going back to Apollo. Imagine if I tried to sell you a 50-year-old telephone. Nobody is going to buy a 50-year-old telephone.”

View the entire panel discussion.

You'll hear from AE professor Dave Spencer, a former NASA engineer,  his colleague  Robert Braun, former NASA chief technologist; Aerospace Engineering School Advisory Council member, Sandra Magnus, an MSE graduate, former astronaut, and current executive director of the AIAA; and some very accomplished GT-AE alumni: John Bradford, Ian Clark, Andy Calloway, and Ian Meginnis.

Read more

The designs for The Vapor, Neuman's 3450-pound, hydrogen cell-powered, four-seat airplane will be reviewed again, in October, when the recent ASDL grad has been invited to present it before experts at NASA's Langley Center.

"It's a competitive design, so it's already generated some interest from employers," said the 24-year-old Marietta native, who completed co-ops at Boeing, Sikorsky, and Rolls Royce while a student GT-AE.

"It's really been quite exciting."

Neuman was the only one-person team to take on the challenge, which tasked student engineers to design a four-seat vehicle that could carry at least 400 pounds of extra cargo, fly at least 575 miles during a single flight, cruise at a speed of at least 150 miles-per-hour, and be able to take off in less than 3,000 feet under normal conditions.

And it would have to be competitive with standard piston-engine airplanes that burn aviation fuel by 2020.

"But those were just the minimal standards," said Neuman.

"The real goal was to be able to travel 1000 miles at a speed of 190 miles-per-hour, with a payload of 800 pounds. And the game wasn't one of pure number analysis either. They wanted to see a plane that could compete in today's market, with components that are available now to manufacture it."

At an estimated production cost of around $547,500, the Vapor was competitive with the Cirrus SR-22, one of the most popular single-engine gas-powered planes on the market. Not only did it meet the distance and payload demands, Neuman's plane was also shown to be 16 decibels quieter and to consume 3.8 times less fuel than the SR-22.

"We may not have hydrogen refueling stations everywhere yet, but there are economically feasible ways to develop hydrogen on site. It can be derived from natural gas, or biomass," he said.

"And its only emission is water vapor."

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the design process the development of a validation tool that would benchmark the Vapor's performance. Up until a few years ago, most electric or fuel-cell-powered planes were too small and too slow to meet the NASA specs.

"I had to analyze large electric powered planes because that's what I'm designing," he said. "Now there are a few larger electric airplanes in production that I can use to validate Vapor. The numbers I got were aligned with reality."

The Helen B. and Roger A. Krone Faculty Endowment Fund will give School Chair Vigor Yang the flexibility to meet needs as they arise - including (but not limited to) the creation of director’s chairs, faculty chairs, professorships, and early career professorships. 
  
“As I have found success in my personal and professional life, I am better able to put my time at Tech in perspective,” Krone explained. “The four years in Aerospace Engineering helped me to realize my dream. It is our hope that this gift will help other students realize their dreams.”

Yang left little doubt but that this gift will inspire great things.

“The generosity of Roger and Helen Krone has long been an inspiration to the Guggenheim School,” he said.

“Their latest act of philanthropy is truly transformative. Not only does it enable us to exceed our ambitious Campaign goal, but it will allow the School to recruit and cultivate the best minds for our future faculty. We are humbled by the faith they have placed in our educational mission. And we are committed to making them proud of that support.”

For the Krones, the key to a world-class aerospace engineering program at Georgia Tech is the faculty, which is also one of the Guggenheim School’s top fundraising priorities.

“To be the best, Tech needs to continue to attract the best. Competition for faculty is high. Having another endowed faculty position gives the School a place to attract and retain another outstanding faculty member,” he said.

Krone is the CEO of Leidos, a leader in science and technology solutions in the areas of national security, health, and engineering. Prior to joining Leidos, he served as president of Network and Space  Systems for The Boeing Company. He was vice president and treasurer of McDonnell Douglas at the time of its 1997 merger with Boeing. He joined McDonnell Douglas in 1992 as director of financial planning after a 14-year career at General Dynamics.
  
Helen Krone is secretary, treasurer, and financial manager for the Krone Foundation. She serves on the board of trustees for the Mountain Retreat Association, which manages the Montreat Conference Center, a national Presbyterian conference center in North Carolina. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas, Austin.

Roger Krone currently serves on the board of the Georgia Tech Foundation, and he has been a member and chair of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board. He also served as an ex-officio member of the Campaign Steering Committee. 

To inquire about making a gift in support of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, contact Farah A. Kashlan, director of development at 404.894.1297 orfarah.kashlan@ae.gatech.edu.

In work supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Yeung, his Ph.D. student X. M, Zhai, and his long-time collaborator Katerpalli R. Sreenivasan of New York University produced the paper entitled “Extreme Events in Computational Turbulence," which appeared in the prestigious journal Sept. 29.

The article describes the results of one of the largest computations devoted solely to the study of small scales. By performing direct numerical simulations of homogeneous and isotropic turbulence on a massive scale, their work has led to a major advance in the general understanding of turbulence small-scale structure, which has important implications for many fields of science and engineering.

Traditionally, phenomenological models of turbulent fluctuations have been used by scientists and engineers to obtain an approximation of the gross properties of turbulent flows, such as aerodynamic drag and mixing rates in an aircraft engine. Yeung's work allows scientists to understand the underlying physical processes better and thereby enhance the potential for devising new and improved models.

"Professor Yeung’s work on extreme behaviors in turbulence is of fundamental importance,” said William R. T. Oakes Professor and school chair Vigor Yang.

"So much has not been well-studied. But Professor Yeung's work has the potential to transform the field."

Yeung's work has been made possible through his long-standing successes in competitive peer-reviewed proposals for major resource allocations at a number of national supercomputer centers, including those supported by the NSF and those operated by the US Department of Energy at its national laboratories.

In particular, numerical simulations reported in the new PNAS paper have required almost 300 million core hours at the Blue Waters Petascale supercomputer at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which received a $200 million grant from NSF to support the computer in 2007.

Computational resources of this magnitude are very expensive, highly sought after, and well beyond the capabilities of a single university campus without major support on a national scale. Yeung's team is one of a select few to make it through a very rigorous selection process for access to these resources.

Announcement of the appointment came just days after the much-decorated Winnefeld officially retired from his most recent military assignment as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Winnefeld will also serve as a senior fellow in the School’s Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy, which focuses on policy research.

“We have already benefited greatly from Admiral Winnefeld’s expertise and experience in his role on the Georgia Tech Advisory Board, and are looking forward to his expanded role with the Institute,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson.

“The richness of his leadership experience and his global perspective will be invaluable to our students, faculty and staff, along with the Atlanta community. We enthusiastically welcome him home to his alma mater.”

Winnefeld graduated from Georgia Tech in 1978 with a degree in aerospace engineering. He retired from his position as the nation’s second highest-ranking military officer on July 31.

“I am very pleased to join the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and CISTP,” said Winnefeld.

“I've long been an admirer of Senator Nunn's, and look forward to working with ­– and continuing to learn from – him. I’m also excited to lend my energy and experience to a very talented group of faculty and students. It’s especially gratifying to be able to do so at an institution that gave so much to me as an undergraduate."

Prior to his role at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he served as the commander of United States Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). He also commanded the United States Sixth Fleet and NATO Allied Joint Command, Lisbon. His new title, distinguished professor, is the same as Nunn's, the former U.S. Senator for whom the Institute’s School of International Affairs is named.

“Admiral Winnefeld is one of our nation's most distinguished and valuable military leaders, and is now returning to his home base at Georgia Tech,” said Nunn.

“This is great news for the Nunn School and the Institute. Sandy will continue to render invaluable service to our nation by working with our students and faculty as they tackle some of our most important international and technological challenges."

Winnefeld’s awards include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal, and five Battle Efficiency awards.

Professor Dave Spencer was also on the Pathfinder team as mission designer while working at the Jet Propulsion Lab in California. He went on to serve as the Mars Odyssey mission manager (2001) and was the deputy project manager for the Phoenix Mars lander (2008). He joined Georgia Tech after leading Phoenix surface operations.

Braun,  Spencer, and their colleague, Amanda Stockton, from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry sat down with the Institute's Jason Maderer to discuss and debate when humans will get to Mars, the cost of this unprecedented mission, and the technical challenges of making the historic journey.

Why should humans go to Mars?

Spencer: Exploration is in our DNA. It’s what we as a people, and the United States in particular, are built upon. Mars is the next logical step and the direction our species is headed toward.

Braun: NASA was built on big goals and dreams. Achieving large goals is precisely what the nation expects from its space program. A great way to build U.S. scientific and technological competence is by aiming large.
Why can’t we go there now?

Braun: We could choose to start sending humans to Mars in the next decade if we put our minds to it. The pace of our journey is driven by the pace of our investment in the technologies and capabilities needed for exploration.

Spencer: There’s a fundamental difference between the way the Apollo missions were undertaken versus the current way the Mars exploration program is conceived. Apollo had a very clear set of goals to launch humans into space within a decade. Now, the mindset is that we’re operating under a fixed budget, we must live within it, and only build as we can. That’s a very slow process.

Braun: In the Apollo days, the NASA budget was 10 times what it is today. It was roughly 4 percent of the gross domestic product. Now it’s about .4 percent. Imagine if revenues for a university or a computer company were one-tenth what they were 50 years ago.

Why is it so different?

Braun: Apollo wasn’t really about sending people to the moon within a decade. It was about proving the technological superiority of the United States in a race with the Soviet Union. That’s why funding poured into NASA. It’s a different world now. People who are waiting for the next Kennedy moment are going to wait a long time. I think we’re going to have to figure this out within the general federal funding guidelines that have been in place since the Nixon administration: NASA has to take its rightful place in the federal budget among the other priorities the United States invests in.

Spencer: So that means an international collaboration is essential for something as complex and expensive as going to Mars.

Braun: Yes. And more significant partnerships with the U.S. commercial space sector.

What are some of the biggest technological challenges?

Spencer: A round trip is a minimum of two years: at least six months to get there, one year on Mars, and about six months to get back. The radiation exposure an astronaut would get during that time period is a large fraction of what’s considered to be a safe level of radiation dosage for a lifetime. Radiation shielding is needed, but that adds mass. And mass is one of the key costs of going into space.

Braun: And then there’s landing very large payloads. The Curiosity rover is the largest thing we’ve ever put on Mars, and it’s the size of a small car. For humans, we’re talking about landing a series of two-story houses to establish a base camp. We also need to improve the efficiency of our propulsion systems for the flight to Mars and learn to make use of the surface resources available once there.

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to what one would see from a spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Would people come back from the first mission?
 

Braun: I hope so. There are groups that want to do pure settlement: a one-way trip. But I don’t think the U.S. and the world would make the investment if it were a one-way trip. I think the reason you send people to Mars is to bring them back so they can be heroes and inspire billions of others — like the Apollo astronauts. I would want to meet them. Wouldn’t you?

Spencer: It’s in our culture that the initial explorers go and come back. Think about Lewis and Clark, who returned to civilization after exploring the western part of the continent. Eventually, and not much later, people went out and settled the American West in large numbers.

Braun: Personally, I think there will be a handful of round-trip missions before we start settling.

When will people land on Mars?

Spencer: No earlier than 2040 and no later than 2100.

Braun: Eight years after we decide to do it. In other words, eight years after we have made considerable investments in proving the capabilities needed. We need a few capabilities for this mission: a big rocket, radiation shielding.

Spencer: An ascent vehicle.

Braun: Right. There are about six capabilities needed for a human Mars mission. Right now we’re probably investing in three of them, and at a very low level. I’ll know we are serious about sending people to Mars when I see this country and others invest in the needed capabilities in a significant way. Once we do, we’ll land eight years later.

Spencer: You’re more optimistic than I am.

How much money will it take?

Braun: A lot for the space program, but not very much for the world.

Spencer: At least $100 billion spread over 10 years. That’s not that much. You can spend a billion dollars easily on a relatively common infrastructure project. What does a football stadium cost? $1 billion?

Braun: Roughly $10-$15 billion a year for a decade. Right now NASA’s yearly budget is about $18 billion, and we spend about half of that on human spaceflight. If the rest of the world (Russia, China, Europe) matched the U.S. investment, Mars would be within our grasp.
Final question: What does Martian exploration look like 100-150 years from now?

Spencer: It will be like Antarctica is today: People will be ferried to the surface to do research for a certain time period and then return. There will be crops on Mars. But it will be a small footprint – it’s tough to live up there. But we will.

Braun: One hundred years from now, our space program will be even more significant and more ubiquitous to life on Earth. We’ll have journeyed to the ocean worlds in the outer solar system, where many believe there may be life waiting to be discovered. We’ll have learned about other earths around distant stars. We’ll have imaged them and seen blue oceans and white clouds. In 100-150 years, we will have settled Mars at some level, as well as answered other fundamental societal questions such as: Are we alone and where did we come from?

Amanda Stockton is an assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Her research focuses on the origin of biomolecules and the emergence of life on Mars and throughout the galaxy. She doesn’t just cook up chemical reactions in her lab — she builds instruments she hopes will fly someday to Mars and search for the basic building blocks of life, whatever it may happen to look like 140 million miles from home.

How do you find life on Mars?

How do you find life on Mars when it’s completely different from life in a totally different chemical and thermodynamic environment, so there’s no reason to think that it’s anything like what we have here. We can’t assume it’s chosen the same building blocks as what makes up our proteins or DNA.

Here’s another way of thinking about it: There are 20 amino acids on Earth. They build the enzymes that create the fingerprint of terrestrial life. There are more than 100 amino acids found in meteorites. The fingerprint, if you even want to call it that, is completely different. You can’t assume Martian life would have the exact same 20-amino-acid fingerprint as Earth.

photo - hand holding circular device

Amanda Stockton holds a programmable microfluidic device that enables automated sample processing and analysis of amino acids. Photo: Fitrah Hamid
 

But here’s the bigger issue — we have to quit sending the same instruments up there. We’ve never sent or used an instrument on Mars that can directly detect amino acids. We’re doing the chemistry wrong. Instead of heating samples and watching for organics to evaporate into a gas analyzer, we need a wet-extraction method that sends samples to a liquid analyzer. We need a fancy Martian espresso maker — something that can dig into the soil, put it into a liquid and a tool that can analyze the Martian espresso directly. That’s when we’ll truly know what’s in the dirt.

I think there’s life on Mars. We can get really far with analytical instruments, but to absolutely confirm it, you have to eventually send people. Robots and rovers can’t think for themselves and recognize those patterns indicative of life, like faces and fingerprints. Humans can. But that brings up a different issue: People are living, breathing bags of bacteria capable of contaminating the planet. So when humans get there, we’ll start searching and could very likely find only what we brought with us.
Humans on Mars prediction:

We have all the science and engineering in place to go right now. We just need to do it. All we’re lacking is the funding and the political will. I really don’t want us to go and contaminate the planet until an unmanned mission is able to return a definitive answer about life up there. Without that, we’ll never know what’s native and what came along with us. So I’m thinking somewhere between 2040 and 2050.

The winners in each of eight categories will be announced by TAG at an awards gala, to be held Aug. 28 at the Carlos Community Center in Atlanta. The GT-AE STEP camp is vying for the top honor in the Post-Secondary Outreach category.

“It was truly a challenge to choose from among the many applicants from around Georgia for these finalists,” said Tino Mantella, president & CEO of TAG.

Continued his colleague, Michael Robertson, director of TAG-Ed: 

“We applaud each of this year’s finalists for their extraordinary efforts to bolster awareness about the importance of STEM and for their hard work to increase student participation in science, technology, engineering and math programs."

“Georgia will need to fill some 211,000 STEM-related jobs by 2018, so we are pleased to showcase so many great schools, programs and organizations that are helping to develop a strong future workforce for our state. ”

Coordinated by the faculty and staff of GT-AE's Aerospace System Design Lab and the Georgia Space Grant Consortium, the STEP camp challenged 46 Metro Atlanta high school students to solve one of several open-ended problems.

"It wasn't as though the faculty overseeing the students knew the answer, or that there was even just one answer to be found," said Dr. Kelly Griendling, one of the research engineers who ran the camp.

"There might have been a couple ways to solve the problem, and we wanted them to find the one they could support. Of course, they were paired up with research engineering faculty who knew how to approach the problem. But we didn't make it easy."

The Georgia STEM Education Awards recognizes schools, programs, and companies for outstanding efforts and achievements in supporting and promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Education in Georgia.

Examples of projects undertaken by the 2015 STEP campers include:

• 3D Printer:The students built a small 3D printer from a kit, modifying the design to make it more reliable;
• UAV for Mars:  The students designed a small UAV to be used in support of a future Mars Colony;
• Parametric Wing Design: The students tried to develop a parametric CAD model for a wing that could be manufactured in a FAB lab. This is to support forward deployed troops who may need to repair or adapt small unmanned surveillance vehicles with minimal tools and engineering knowledge;
• Hardware In-the-loop Testing:  This team designed a hardware-in-the-loop simulation framework for a quadcopter;
• FPV Gimbal for a Quadcopter: This team is designing and building a quadcopter to carry a first person view gimbal, and getting all the electronics to integrate smoothly;
• Europa Ice Drilling: The students are designing an ice drilling robot to search for life under the ice of Europa;
• Quadcopter Maritime Launch and Recovery Pad: The students are designing a launching/landing pad for a quadcopter to be deployed and recovered from a WAM-V (a 16 ft autonomous boat);
• Aerobatic Aircraft: The students developed elements of a design environment for aerobatic aircraft;
• Electromechanical Systems Education: the students are testing a course developed through one of our research projects to teach hands-on skills to young enlisted military personnel, and providing feedback on how we can improve the course.  As they complete the course, they are challenged to build, repair, and adapt a quadcopter using a set of parts that is provided.
• Robotic Arms for Kids: This team created a parametric, scalable model of a prosthetic arm for kids, which can be fully 3D printed. The goal is cut down on the time and cost required for doctors to size and manufacture the arms. 
• SysML Bots:  Using SysML, the students programmed a number of behaviors into a set of small ground robots. 
• WAM-V:  AUVSI recently donated a WAM-V to the lab, and these students put it together so that it worked. They developed an Arduino control setup for the motors.  
   

But, as the new color commentator for the IMG Radio Network, he’ll have to trade some of his enthusiasm for a little cool-headed analysis.

That shouldn’t be a problem for Bedford, now a practicing patent attorney with Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunbar, LLC in Atlanta. He gets paid to stick to the facts.

And, since he has spent the last two years moonlighting as the commentator on the Jackets pre-game show, he also knows how to keep the gridiron banter crisp.

“It was a lot of fun,” he said after the season opener, Sept. 5, versus Alcorn State

(66-6).

“I had a lot of highlights to call and that makes it more enjoyable. My only concern was, ‘Am I going to run out of positive adjectives to use?’ You can only use ‘fabulous,’ ‘phenomenal,’ ‘tremendous’ and ‘great’ so many times.”

Those same words have often been used to describe Bedford, who started his football career at Tech as a walk-on defensive lineman freshman year (2006). Hard work, dedication, and talent led the Gainesville, FL native to earn a scholarship from head coach Paul Johnson and, then, a spot as the team’s starting center. By the time he graduated, Bedford had become a two-time All ACC player; had won the inaugural Burlsworth Trophy, (given to the top college player to begin his career as a walk-on); and was one of just three college players named to Sporting News’ 20 Smartest Athletes list.  In 2013 CBS Sports named him to their all-walk-on team, as one of the previous decade’s most surprising successes.

Born and bred a Gators fan, Bedford’s love of football made his transition to the Yellow Jackets seamless. His bigger ambitions went beyond the playing field.

“I have wanted to be an aerospace engineer from the time that I knew what that was,” he said.

“The whole idea of aviation and space flight has always held a special place in my

heart. The feeling of adventure that is so often absent from modern life was just so clearly present there that I just felt myself drawn to it.”

Bedford maintained this perspective when he chose law school after graduating from Tech.

“I got into the work I’m doing now because I found a way to blend my two passions, engineering and law. I love having the opportunities to help inventors protect their inventions, to observe and help to develop new technology at the forefront of innovation. And I love being in a competitive environment.”

Bedford said he uses what he learned at Tech every day.

“Probably the two most useful tools I learned in the AE program were learning how to prepare and learning how to apply a knowledge base to new environments and challenges,” he said.

“One of the hallmarks of a great attorney is approaching each problem from the mindset that you know everything you possibly can so that you’re prepared for every situation. When you’re studying AE at Tech, you don’t really have much of an option but to adopt that approach.”

In AE, he says, professors always pushed him to prepare, prepare, and then: prepare some more. 

“One time, after a weekend game, Sean came in looking a little tired on Monday,” said Dr. Lakshmi Sankar, one of his GT-AE professors.

“So I asked him if the reason was that he played really hard.”

No, that wasn’t the reason

“So I said, “Well maybe you had a little too much fun after the game?’”

Bedford shook his head.

“‘No, it wasn’t the game or the party. It was your homework…It was really hard. I was up late doing it.’”

Sankar laughs at this now. No complaints or apologies: Bedford was just stating the facts.

"He was a very good student," Sankar added.

Bedford’s dogged attention to detail was just as helpful to him in football. When he was on the Yellow Jackets scout team, he watched video of the other teams so he could imitate them during practice to help the varsity squad prepare for a game. Now, as a color commentator, he studies the other teams so he can be familiar with their plays and players when he’s calling a game.

Prepare, prepare, and then: prepare some more.

It never changes.

And Bedford doesn’t want it to. It’s a formula that has bred success in every aspect of his life. And he’s quick to predict that it will do the same for those who come after him at his alma mater.

“If there’s any student out there who’s thinking about pursuing aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech, I can’t recommend it strongly enough. It will take you places you’ve never imagined.”

After earning his undergraduate degree from GT-AE in 1986, Christopher Jones went on to earn two masters degrees and a doctorate. He also built a successful career in the Air Force, and climbed to the top at Northrop Grumman, where he now serves as the corporate vice president and president of technical services

Through it all, Jones  remained keenly aware of the importance of people, hard work, and planning for a future that will reflect his values, not his resume. He maintained close ties with people from virtually every chapter of his life -  from the high school basketball court to the corporate board room. And this retired lieutenant

colonel still sends his former military unit notes when they come back from deployments.

“Everyone’s different about that,” he said. “For me, I know, that maintaining relationships with decent people is important. At some point, it won’t matter what your job was or what you’ve done. It will be the people who know you. That’s what will matter.”

We asked Chris Jones to share five lessons that have helped him build a life that matters.

1. There is no substitute for internal motivation. You’ve got to identify yours and then work it.

“At Tech, you needed to be motivated, because it was hard. I think it was easier to get in to Tech back then – and easier to get [kicked] out. For me, the motivation came from wanting to be an officer in the military. I applied to Tech because it had a good track record of supporting the military. But graduating from Tech wasn’t guaranteed.

For me, I was on a ROTC scholarship, so I knew from the beginning that I had to maintain a certain GPA and I had to graduate in four years. No room for failure or excuses. Those are the conditions of the scholarship. And without that scholarship, I knew there was no money for me to go to school. I kept those things in mind, and then, like anything worth doing in life, I persevered.”

2. Hard work can take you a lot of places.

“When I played intramural basketball at Georgia Tech, I was by no means the tallest or the fastest guy on the court. But you wouldn’t want me to guard you because I would wear you out.

That’s because I worked it hard. I left it all on the court. When the game was over – whether it was football or basketball or soccer – I was completely done.

There’s a sense of calm you get when you’ve given it your best shot. That’s how I tackled some of the toughest classes I had to take at Tech. That’s how I’ve learned to be a better leader.

At the same time, it’s important to balance yourself. You can’t work hard all the time. I knew that I couldn’t do everything at the same level of intensity at Tech. The science and engineering courses were too demanding. I chose electives that were a little easier so I could pace myself.”

3. Find people who are doing what you want to do. Then: do what they did to get there.

"I learned early on, through sports, to watch the best players – how they blocked, jumped, tackled and rebounded. That’s how you get better.

So when I got to Tech I immediately checked out the juniors and seniors who were doing well. I watched them – how they studied, what they did. Then I asked them questions – about what courses to take, what courses to avoid, when to punch out and when to stick with it. I joined as many study groups as I could. And then I worked as hard as I could.

I also watched some of my classmates join [groups] that partied a lot. Those were the students who dropped out. Now, I went to my share of parties, and I had a lot of fun at Tech. But I did not join those groups. I would get involved when they were doing an activity to benefit the community, but I didn’t ever join.”

4. Be humbled by your education at Georgia Tech. It will prepare you for success.

“When you come to Georgia Tech, you might think that you studied by yourself in high school and you did pretty well. You were the smartest kid there.

At Tech, you’ll see that you are not the smartest student and you will probably need help. That’s humbling. But once you’ve gotten rid of that chip on your shoulder, you’ll be stronger. You will be a better soldier, employee, executive, and leader.”

5. People matter. A lot.

“As you progress through your career, personnel skills and human dynamics become more important than your technical skills. Pay attention to this. Engineers need to be able to manage and understand people, because, in the end, it’s attracting and managing good people that will make your team successful.

Also, friendships are important. I’ve seen this at every stage of my career, maintaining good relationships with people from high school and college to the Air Force and other companies. All of these experiences matter and will make you a more competent leader.”

Jones, BSAE ’86, is the corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman's Technical Services sector. This spring, the former GT ROTC student was inducted into the GT College of Engineering Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni and named an Associate Fellow of the AIAA.

Jones will formally receive his latest award at the 30th Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) ceremony, a part of the 3-day BEYA Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Conference, to be held in February 2016.

Reflecting on the honor, Jones generously acknowledged his alma mater.

"My experience at Georgia Tech, where I obtained my degree in aerospace engineering, was critical to my personal development," he said.

"Through the years I have remained focused on achieving technical excellence.  Additionally, at every stage of my career, maintaining good relationships with people from high school and college to the Air Force and other companies, have been important.  All of these experiences matter and make you a more competent leader."

Aerospace engineering school chair Dr. Vigor Yang echoed the pride that rippled across campus at the announcement.

"We applaud and admire the impressive career that Dr. Jones has carved out since leaving Georgia Tech," said Yang.

"There's no better way to inspire success among the next generation of engineers  than to demonstrate it with accomplishments like those of Dr. Jones. With each new accolade, he is pointing the way toward a bright future for all engineers."

Announcement of the award came October 12 from Tyrone Taborn the CEO of Career Communications Group, publisher of Black Engineer magazine.

Taborn praised Jones for being a role model to young people seeking to find their way to the STEM pipeline. As the 2016 recipient of the BEYA, Jones joins some of the most recognized luminaries in the engineering field.

"You know some of the great names," Taborn added. "Mark Dean, co-inventor of the personal computer at technology and consulting corporation IBM; Shirley Ann Jackson, an American physicist, and the eighteenth president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Walt Braithwaite," he said.

Since its launch 30 years ago, the BEYA has bestowed this honor to just 29 of the more than 10,000 nomination packages submitted.

Jones "is what we want our children to aspire to," said WHO IS THIS Hrabowski. "To believe in this concept of STEM for all Americans."

Giving credit to his parents, the U.S. military, and his employer, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Jones expressed his pride in being "the product of what's good about the United States."

Jones joined Northrop Grumman in 2004 as director of product support for the Airborne Early Warning Program. In addition to program execution, he provided technical leadership during aircraft design, development, production and fielding, and was a key member of the business strategy development and capture teams. Earlier, Jones worked for Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, where he led analysis, flight tests and research on innovative rotorcraft technologies. He also was the company's technology lead on the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter program and served as chief systems engineer for the Naval Hawk program. In addition to his civilian career, Jones was an active duty Air Force officer and worked as a systems analyst at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where he performed analysis on foreign ballistic missile and space systems.

Jones was also a member of the Connecticut Air National Guard for 14 years, serving as the chief of maintenance for the 103rd Air Control Squadron. He participated in military deployments including Operation Noble Eagle and Operation Enduring Freedom. Jones retired from the Air Guard in 2011. He earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned two master's degrees in aerospace engineering and engineering management from the University of Dayton and a doctorate degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland.

Jones serves on the board of directors of the National Action Council for Minorities and on the board of visitors of the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland.

"It's a good day for engineering, for Northrop Grumman and for America," said Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush.

This is the second time that Portman, 21, has received the scholarship, which is awarded annually to a college student in good academic standing, who is pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering, or aeronautical engineering. Previously, Portman received AIAA's Cary Spitzer Digital Avionics scholarship and Georgia Tech's Gregory R. Matheson Memorial scholarship.

The San Francisco native is currently finishing up a summer internship in the Office of Research and Engineering - Vehicle Performance Division -- within the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, DC. He plans to continue his education to the master's level before pursuing a job in industry in flight testing, flight ops, or aviation safety.

Portman is mentored by AE professor Dr. Amy Pritchett.

"Dr. Pritchett and I have been conducting research into various topics relating to aviation safety and some human performance. This past semester, I completed a research assignment looking into the events of Asiana Flight 214 and creating a theoretical design for a context dependent total energy alerting system."

The GT-AE senior was named Mr. Georgia Tech 2015 during a Homecoming game that saw the Yellow Jackets take an unlikely victory from Florida State.

Johnson shared his coronation with ChBe major Missy Pittard, who was named Ms. Georgia Tech.

For anyone who knows the Lithonia, GA native, his triumph over a field of 25 competitors is no surprise. His energy, attitude, and smarts make him a stand-out even among the best students.

But, as fiercely as he competes to win at whatever he does, Johnson is the last person to predict victory.

"I was standing there with giants, really --  the people who make things happen at Georgia Tech," he said of his fellow finalists, who were brought out onto the football field during the Halftime Show.

"So I really wasn't thinking I'd win. I was wondering who would win."

That might explain why Johnson briefly lost his balance when his name was called over the loud speakers. It also explains why he was busy studying for a test the next day.

"Test doesn't care what title I got on Saturday," he said, with a smile.

And there it is: Johnson is a guy whose eyes are always on the prize. He's always scanning the future for the next goal.

After finishing his undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering and business technology next spring, Johnson plans to earn a doctorate in aerospace engineering, get a law degree, work as a patent attorney, and, then teach- what else? - aerospace engineering.

Before he finished his undergraduate studies, he wanted to go for the Mr. Georgia Tech title, which brings together many of the best qualities of his experience here.

"It's something I was introduced to my freshman year, when Jacob Tzegaebe (MSCE '13) was the reigning Mr. Georgia Tech," says Johnson, one of just five finalists considered.

"I saw that here was this black man who was Mr. Georgia Tech, so I thought that's something I could do. Three years later, I'm doing it because Jacob opened the door for me. And the thing is, I'm holding that door open."

That, in a nutshell, describes the spirit  that drives Henderson Johnson. Articulate, friendly, and very ambitious, he would rather leverage an opportunity than wait for one to appear. Friends, like fellow AE seniorElizabeth Balga, commend him for finding ways to make things work -- for himself, and for everyone around him.

"I've traveled in lots of circles at Georgia Tech and I'm comfortable in them all," he says. "As Mr. Georgia Tech, I think I can tell a story that every student can relate to."

Like many engineers, Johnson has a story that starts with a pinch of science fiction.

"In ninth grade, after I saw the first Iron Man movie, with its big weapons, I was hooked. I started asking around what I'd need to study to do that," he says.  "The answer, per Google, was aerospace."

Seven years later, Johnson doesn't need Google to explain how his celluloid fantasies gradually morphed into a real-world career.

"What's engineering? It's literally taking something imaginary and applying a body of knowledge to it to make something happen. I love that. Like flight -- how did that happen? Someone had to imagine it, and, then, it had to be engineered. I love being an engineer."

Johnson seems to apply this same principle to his life, where he  systematically turns his dreams into reality by working hard, asking a lot of questions, and looking for opportunities.

And that formula has worked.

He has twice landed a prestigious internship with the Boeing Company; he is a member of the National Society of Black Engineers, Sigma Gamma Tau, and Omicron Delta Kappa; and he's a Bill & Melinda Gates Millennium Scholar. For the past year and a half, he's conducted research on turbulent flames with Prof. Tim Lieuwen.

"I've been measuring consumption speed and other relevant characteristics because the better we understand turbulent flames, the better we can build combustors. We can make them cleaner, more efficient, and safer."

Lately, Johnson has begun to  focus on his next venture: graduate school.

"I know it costs a lot to pursue a doctorate and a law degree," he said. "But my mantra is: if I have to pay for it, then I've done something wrong. There are ways to make it affordable. And I will find them."

If that sounds like bluster, it's not. Henderson Johnson has always loved a good challenge.

"When I was accepted to Tech, I was also considering Tuskegee, because they offered me a full ride," he said.

"So  I called my aunt, who graduated from Tech, and asked her what it was like. She said a lot of things, but she ended with: 'It's really, really hard.'"

Johnson's face lights up at those words.

"That's what convinced me. I wanted something really, really hard. I wanted to be challenged."

He got what he was looking for at GT-AE.  And then some.

"In high school, I could read something once and get it," he said.

"But at Tech, I realized new concepts were not going to come to me as quickly and as easily as they used to. Sometimes I had to read something 2, 3, 4, 5 times to really get it. And that's what I did. Because that's the expectation at Tech -- and in the work place -- you have to really, reallyget it."

We're pretty confident that Henderson Johnson II has really, really got it.

And then some.

Prof. Theodorou to lead NSF-funded workshop

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A grant from the National Science Foundation is providing GT-AE professor Evangelos Theodorou a platform to further explore control, computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

"Learning, Perception and Control in Robots and Humans" is the name of the workshop that Theodorou and his UCLA colleague, ProfessorStafano Soatto, will host  August 25-26 in Washington, DC.

"This workshop seeks to advance the core themes underlying these disciplines and their mathematical underpinnings," said Theodorou.

Topics will include stochastic analysis and control, the geometry of spatial information and sensory signal processing, and geometric and algebraic structures which arise naturally in robotics, perception and learning.

"This workshop will bring together scientists from different areas of sciences and engineering to brainstorm on two questions related to the representation of sensory information and data, and generalization of decision and control mechanisms in robotics and autonomous systems," said Theodorou.

"The aforementioned topics will be investigated at the intersection of planning and control, information theory, machine learning, neuroscience and cognitive sciences, and perception. The emphasis of the workshop will be on the mathematical interdependencies and interconnections of these areas based on concepts drawn from differential geometric and topology."

Joining them in this two-day exploration will be nearly three dozen noted experts from a variety of fields including machine learning, sensing, & vision; stochastic control & statistical physics; geometric mechanics & control theory, and computational neuroscience &cognitive science.

"The  workshop will also determine future research directions and identify open questions across the disciplines of control theory, machine learning, perception and cognitive sciences. These future research directions can bring autonomy into a new level and create new areas of investigation at the frontier of robust intelligence and autonomy."

"We're excited to add Dassault Systemes’ powerful expertise and software to ASDL's legacy of innovation and accomplishment," said Regents Professor Dr. Dimitri Mavris, the director of the Aerospace System Design Lab.

"It is our mutual commitment to pushing the limits that has brought such success to both Dassault and Georgia Tech. With this latest partnership, we look forward to continuing in that tradition."

Dassault Systemes (DS) is a leader in 3D-design software, 3D digital mock-up, and project lifecycle management (PLM) software. The company has work with Georgia Tech (GT) for several years – with GT leveraging the DS PLM solutions in its research and academic program.

The most recent partnership will enable advanced product development, manufacturing, and technologies using Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform and “Winning Program” Industry Solution, to:

• Be at the cutting edge for multi-disciplinary, physics-based design methods suitable for the design of all types of complex systems
• Rethink systems design by pulling “detailed” design aspects forward in design process
• Leverage latest systems engineering methodologies and computational capabilities
• Focus on virtual design, testing and certification (limiting physical prototyping)
• Enable completely integrated design platforms and transparent requirements traceability
• Utilize a non-weight based approach that brings structural, manufacturing and production planning considerations earlier in the design process 
   

The ASDL-DS collaboration tackles chronic issues in the design and manufacturability of complex aerospace systems using virtual experimentation and verification in place of physical prototyping.

This approach requires suites of software tools capable of defining transparent system requirements and enabling traceability, capturing sufficient component fidelity, modeling complex system interactions, fulfilling crucial verification and validation tasks, and infusing the impact of both manufacturability and procurement concerns early into the design process

The latest chapter of the ASDL-DS partnership aims to develop revolutionary approach to design and manufacturing with a methodology that focuses on minimizing the iterative design-build-test-redesign cycle that plagues many complex engineering projects. The integration of these methods within the DS Winning Program experience solution allow the decision-making to occur in the early stages of design, and leverages tools like IRMA and DS CATIA Knowledgeware to help manage vast combinatorial spaces, pare down concept spaces to the most promising alternatives, and remove mundane engineering tasks from the typical design process to enable engineers to focus on “high-value” work.

A longtime Georgia Tech faculty, Ruffin also serves as the director of both the NASA Georgia Space Grant Consortium and the head of the National Space Grant Consortium Directors. As a faculty and as a administrative leader, Ruffin has consistently worked to expand the Institute's accessibility to previously unrepresented groups.

"I cannot think of anyone more deserving," said GT-AE Chair Vigor Yang.

The Diversity Champion Awards recognize students, staff, faculty, and units who have actively demonstrated and positively promoted the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Georgia Tech campus community. Each year, one member of the faculty, staff, and student body, and a unit (e.g., office, department, school, lab) is selected and recognized at the Diversity Symposium Awards Luncheon.

Ruffin will be officially recognized at that luncheon, Sept. 9.

The induction brings to 70 the number of SGT members in the Georgia Tech chapter, said Chapter President Swapnil Pujari.

"The new inductees have been recognized as those individuals in the field of aerospace engineering who have, through scholarship, integrity, and outstanding achievement been a credit to their profession,” said Pujari, a senior from Alpharetta.

To qualify for induction, sophomores must be academically ranked in the top 20 percent of their class. Juniors and seniors must be ranked in the top 25 and top 33 percent, respectively. 

The Fall 2015 inductees, pictured above, are:

Dawn Andrews, Elizabeth Balga, Borja Ballester, Matt Bernstein, Harleen Brar, Camilio Duarte, Katherine Gross, Marc Henri, Nitin Jain, James Morgan, Joshua Netter, Jose Sanchez, Alton Schultheis, Firas Sheik, Maddie Sibilia, Joshua Siniard, Liam Smith, Stephen Sola, David Twibell, and Ebrahim Yavari.

The GT chapter of SGT is involved in a number of high-profile activities on campus, including the recent Trivia Night, where AIAA executive director Dr. Sandra Magnus served as the MC. The group also organizes and hosts the annual Senior Banquet, which last year featured an inspirational talk by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. The group regularly sponsors free tutoring for fellow underclassmen.

Find out more about the Georgia Tech chapter of Sigma Gamma Tau.

Among those recognized were AE professors Marilyn Smith and Eric Johnson; Georgia Tech graduate students Joachim Hodara (AE), Daniel Magree (AE), Stephen Havilland, and Dimitry Bershadsky; and GT-AE alumni Dr. Daniel Prosser, '15, and Dr. Troy Schank,'08.

Of the 255 papers selected for review, the 20 best from each technical area were selected. Each paper then competed in the Technical Directorate comprising of 3-4 technical areas.  Seven  finalists were chosen to compete for the Gessow Best Forum Paper Award.

"This year, Georgia Tech and Bell Helicopter each had three papers selected in the top 20," said Smith, an AHS Technical Fellow.

"That represents the highest number of papers in an organization selected for best paper."

GT-AE alumnus Dr. Troy Schank and his Bell Helicopter colleague Dr. Kynn Schulte were recognizedfor their work, "Collaborative Investigation of the Aerodynamics Behavior of Airfoils in Reverse Flow" which received three much-coveted awards: Gessow Best Paper of the AHS Forum, Best Paper for the HUMS/CBM, and Best Paper in the Systems Engineering Technical Directorate.

Prosser and Smith took home the Best Paper in the Modeling and Simulation Technical Area and Best Paper in the Systems Integration Technical Directorate for their work, "Physics-Based Aerodynamic Simulation Models Suitable for Dynamic Behavior of Complex Bluff Body Configurations."

Prosser, who received his doctorate in May,  will be joining NAVAIR in July 2015.

Winners of the Best Paper in the Unmanned VTOL Aircraft & Rotorcraft Technical Area
were Havilland,  Bershadsky, Magree, and Johnson for their presentation, "Development of a 500-gram Vision-based Autonomous Quadrotor Vehicle Capable of Indoor Navigation."

Hodara and Smith joined University of Maryland colleagues Andrew Lind and Anya Jones in winning the Best Paper for the Aerodynamics Technical Area for their work, "Collaborative Investigation of the Aerodynamics Behavior of Airfoils in Reverse Flow," a joint venture between UMD and GT-AE's Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence and ARO.