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MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department
enews Vol 2, #4
January 2006

In this issue:

  1. Awards and recognition
  2. Comings and goings
  3. Positions open
  4. Course 16 changes approved for fall
  5. New aero-astro web site to debut
  6. Papers sought for CDIO conference
  7. X-Prize pilot to speak at AIAA Dinner
  8. Teams receive awards for biosat bus comp
  9. Web faves

1. AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Professor Jonathan How as been selected as the fourth Raymond L. Bisplinghoff Faculty Fellow for a three year period, which started January 15. The Fellowship award includes an annual scholarly allowance and nine months of support for a graduate research assistant. Prof. How plans to expand his research interests on developing cooperative control algorithms for UAVs to "investigate the related, but completely new direction of verification and validation of the control software implementation." He also intends to "develop several new teaching modules to develop a tighter integration of the control and software curricula.... and, in particular, to introduce important concepts associated with online implementation and verification with the controls courses." Professor Earll Murman noted that "Jon's Bisplinghoff proposal hit the sweet spot intended by the Bisplinghoff Fund donors - to provide resources for mid-career faculty to undertake new research directions and curriculum development. Jon will collaborate with other faculty to develop a new course on software verification methods with very strong emphasis on practical aerospace applications."

Geoffrey A. Landis, the Aero-Astro McNair-NASA visiting professor who hails from NASA Glenn, has been granted United States Patent 6,967,462, "Charging of Devices by Microwave Power Beaming." You can read the details on the U.S. Patent Office and Trademark Office Web site.

2. COMINGS AND GOINGS

The Aero-Astro community was saddened to learn that Paul Warren, a research engineer in the Gas Turbine Lab, passed away on January 26 following a brief illness Many in the Department had signed a card, offered greetings, and made contributions to assist Paul and his family. Paul's wife thanked all for their concern and to say how helpful the department was in their time of need. He will be greatly missed.

Aero-Astro Prof./LIDS Director Vincent Chan, will be on sabbatical this coming term at Stanford. Prof. Earll Murman, associate head of the AA Information Sector, will hold the fort for the term. Prof. Chan writes, "To help (LIDS) Associate Director Professor Muriel Medard and Assistant Director for Administration Eileen Ghavidel manage the Lab, Professor Robert Gallager has agreed to be the Acting Co-Director for the term. Professor Shapiro, Director of RLE; and Professor Chandrakasan, Associate Director of MTL are gracious enough to agree to be their advisors also. LIDS is in good hands for the next term."

Jacob Crandall is working with Prof. Missy Cummings as a postdoctoral student. John Adamczyk from NASA/Glenn is a new Visiting Scholar at GTL, supervised by Professor Ed Greitzer. Jun Li, of China, is also a GTL Visiting Engineer under Ed Greitzer and Choon Tan. Luis Cueto-Felgueroso, a postdoc associate from Spain, is under supervision of Professor Jamie Peraire. as is Yolanda Vidal-Segui, a Visiting Assistant Professor from Spain. Marita Canina, is here as a Postdoctoral Fellow from Italy, Dava Newman is her supervisor. Welcome to all.

3. POSITIONS OPEN

Aero-Astro continues to seek candidates for several new tenure track or tenured faculty positions available starting September 2006. A senior faculty dual appointment with EECS in software engineering, a dual appointment with ESD in Air Transportation/Critical Networked Infrastructure Systems, and a position in Control Systems. Enews readers are encouraged to circulate the availability of these positions to interested colleagues outside the Department. Details on these openings are available on the Jobs page.

The MIT Environmental Design Space team is searching for a Postdoctoral Associate. The position includes assessment and application of computational aircraft design tools, leading the development of a fidelity management system, close collaboration with graduate students and other researchers, and interaction with industry partners. For details, visit the Jobs page.

A 100% paid TA position (stipend + tuition waiver) is available to support 16.888/ESD.77 Multidisciplinary System Design Optimization for the 2006 Spring Semester. We are seeking a highly motivated, qualified and reliable graduate TA who can help with course administration, grading and stellar website management. Details are available on the Jobs page.

4. COURSE 16 CHANGES APPROVED FOR FALL

The MIT Committee on Curriculum has approved changes to the Course 16 undergraduate program designed to improve the teaching of programming and lessening Unified Engineering pace and pressure. The changes, which will take place starting next academic year, are:

  • remove the Computers and Programming unit from Unified
  • add 1.00 Introduction to Computers and Engineering Programming as a required core subject
  • possibly add a Course 16 recitation or option to 1.00
  • retire 16.05 Thermal Energy and move portions of it into Unified
  • reduce the number of Unified lab/system hours

The net effect of these changes to students in Unified Engineering starting this fall will be one less contact hour, two more hours for self study, and less fragmentation in the number of topics covered during the year. A notification of these changes has been sent to the current sophomores enrolled, or planning to enroll, in Unified. Freshman who have expressed an interest in majoring in Course 16 will also be notified. Anyone with questions about these changes should contact the chair of the Course 16 Undergraduate Committee, Prof. Martinez-Sanchez, or Marie Stuppard in the Aero-Astro Student Services office.

5. NEW AERO-ASTRO WEB SITE TO DEBUT

Within the next one to two weeks, Aero-Astro will have a new site on the World Wide Web. A result of eight months of planning, design, writing, and coding, the new site will offer a wide range of improvements over the current site, which, at eight years old, is showing signs of age. The new design is cleaner, more attractive, and technically much easier to update and modify. New coding meets all current Web standards and employs protocols and advances developed since the earlier site was posted. Navigation, readability, and general usability was vetted and modified through rigorous testing in the MIT Usability Lab. The site complies with Americans with Disability Act guidelines to optimize accessibility by people with special needs, including those who use screen readers, voice browsers, magnifiers, and other technology assists. Almost all text has been revised and updated - for the first time, information is specifically written for online application, and much outdated, irrelevant, and erroneous information has been removed or replaced. And, the site makes greater use of images of Aero-Astro facilities, projects, and people. Preparations for the switch, including final testing and preparing the Department's Athena files for the changeover, are underway. The team working on the project comprises Phyllis Collymore, Barbara Lechner, Bill Litant (project manager), Beth Marois, Marie Stuppard, Ian Waitz, and Lisa Mayer and Jeff Reed of IS&T.

6. PAPERS SOUGHT FOR CDIO CONFERENCE

The CDIO Initiative, the international collaboration of engineering schools that are tailoring their syllabuses and curricula to a protocol developed in Aero-Astro, is inviting prospective authors to submit papers for presentation at the 2006 International CDIO Conference, June 12-15, 2006 in Linköping, Sweden. Papers are welcome on any topic or theme relevant to the CDIO Initiative, including curriculum design and development; program evaluation and continuous improvement; teaching, learning and assessment, the development of student skills; introductory courses; design-build experiences; the provision of workspaces; faculty development; and CDIO implementation. To date, CDIO has mainly been implemented in mechanical, aeronautical, and electrical engineering programs. Papers relating to implementation in other engineering disciplines are especially welcome. Abstracts of no more than 400 words should be submitted electronically as MSWord files to: cdio@tfk.liu.se Please provide the names and affiliations of all authors and, if possible, indicate to which of the above topics or themes the paper relates. Abstracts are due by February 6, 2006. Enquiries to Dr. Göran Gustafsson (gorang@chalmers.se) or Dr. Perry Armstrong (pj.armstrong@qub.ac.uk). With the addition this month of collaborating schools from China, Germany, and the UK, there are now 19 institutions throughout the world participating in the CDIO Initiative.

7. X-PRIZE PILOT TO SPEAK AT AIAA DINNER

Jon Gibbs, who heads the MIT AIAA student chapter, reminds all that the Annual AIAA Student Faculty Dinner will be held on February 17th, 2006 at 6 p.m. "The event offers the unique opportunity for faculty, staff, and students in the department to interact outside of an academic setting," Gibbs says This year's dinner features guest speaker SpaceShipOne Pilot Brian Binnie,. Binnie piloted the second (and record setting) X-Prize flight. He is also a program business manager and test pilot at Scaled Composites. He has 21 years flight test experience including 20 years of Naval Service in the Strike-Fighter community. He has logged more than 600 hours of flight time in 59 different aircraft and is a licensed airline transport pilot. "It would be a pleasure to see all of you there, so mark your calendars!" Gibbs says.

8. TEAMS RECEIVE AWARDS FOR BIOSAT BUS COMP

On January 27th, two teams received awards for their entries in the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Bus Design Competition. The competition brought students and alums together to design satellite Bus subsystems, inspiring collaboration across disciplines. MIT alums Kurt Keville and Ryan Lackey worked with Mechanical Engineering grad student Matt Traum, Economics sophomore Delbert Joo, and BU Electrical Engineering sophomore Keith Fox to design the top Power and Communications subsystems. Aero-Astro sophomores Daanish Maqbool and Syed Fareed Ahmed joined forces with Electrical Engineering junior Wajahat Khan and with Biology junior Ali Alim-Marvasti to develop the winning Attitude Determination and Control subsystem.

Currently, a team is being formed to continue the Bus design work in the spring. All interested parties are welcome! UROP openings are available in all Bus subsystems, including GNC, Thermal, Propulsion, Structures, Power, Communications, ADCS and Avionics. For further information, please contact Elizabeth Deems at edeems@mit.edu.

9. WEB FAVES

(If you have a favorite Web site that you'd like to share with the Department, send the URL to Bill Litant with a very brief explanation of why you like it.)

Bowled over by MIT acronyms and initialisms? Don't know the difference between PSFC and PPST - and you actually thought ROV is someone at the White House? MITers love to toss out obscure letter combinations - and few feel comfortable halting a conversation to inquire as to what on earth they mean. If you're confronted with a mystery abbreviation, furtively jot it down and then, as soon as you're alone point your browser at the MIT Acronym Web site. From "A" ("After subject number- subject approved for graduate degree") to "Zeta Psi," there are dozens and dozens of acronyms explained. Created by Janet Snover of the MIT Executive Vice President's Office, the site is temporarily hosted by Aero-Astro's Bill Litant while Janet takes a break. If there's an MIT acronym you'd like to see added (except acronyms for scientific terminology and commercial computer languages), send it to Bill at wlitant@mit.edu. Oh, and the second acronym on the list, following "A" is "AA." You better know what that stands for!

CONTRIBUTE TO THE E-NEWS

Please share your news with the rest of the Aero-Astro community by contributing to the e-news. Awards, events, new research - it's all of interest. Send your suggestions to wlitant@mit.edu.

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