MIT Aero Astro -
 

May 2014

In this issue:
1. Honors and awards
2. Welcome
3. In the picture
4. Promotions
5. Newsbriefs

SpakovskySpakovszky

Radovitzky
Radovitzky

wang
Wang

balakrishnan
Balakrishnan

Greitzer
Greitzer

 

1. Honors and awards

Congratulations to our 2014 department award winners: The Wings Award "for a support staff member in Aeronautics and Astronautics for excellence," presented to administrative assistant Quentin Alexander; the Spirit of XVI award "to recognize sustained excellence by a member of the staff, or a team of staff members in Aeronautics and Astronautics whose work, commitment, and enthusiasm contribute significantly to the achievement of the mission of the department," presented to department space manager Anthony Zolnik; the Vickie Kerrebrock Award "to recognize students, staff, faculty, or others ... who have made significant contributions to building a sense of community in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics," presented to grad student Patrick Blonigan.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers elected Professor Zoltan Spakovszky a Fellow of that organization. His ASME nomination reads, "This nomination for Dr. Zoltan Spakovszky recognizes his achievements in two different venues. One is sustained and outstanding research contributions on unsteady flow and aeromechanical vibrations in turbomachinery and gas turbine engines, including first–of-a-kind descriptions of instabilities in axial and centrifugal compressors, rotor whirl, and acoustics of novel aircraft. A second is excellence in engineering education, on both undergraduate (thermodynamics and propulsion) and graduate (internal flow in fluid machinery) levels. His classes are marked by strong interaction that promotes deep learning to enable students to apply, in new and innovative fashions, the concepts that are taught."

Professor Raul Radovitzky will receive an MIT award recognizing his work as a freshman faculty advisor. Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Julie Norman wrote, "The nominations were very thoughtful and acknowledged (his) importance and impact as an advisor."

Professor Larry Young tells us that "Once again the MIT students achieved high recognition at the ASA Human Research Program Investigators' Workshop in Galveston. Rachel Ellman (HST Bioastro) won one of the two Runner-Up Awards for Best Poster: 'Evaluation of the Hindlimb Unloading Model in Mice as an Analog for Spaceflight Effects on the Musculoskeletal System.' Jordan Spatz (HST Bioastro) won the other Runner-Up Award for the poster 'RNASeq Analysis of Gene Expression in Murine Hind Limb Unloading Disuse Induced Bone Loss.' The overall student winner was Kara Beaton of Johns Hopkins, a Course 16 alumn, supervised by Mark Shelhamer, who received his PhD in AeroAstro at the Man Vehicle Lab."

AeroAstro graduate student Tam Nguyen has been selected for an NSF fellowship.

Professor QiQi Wang is one of 42 scientists and engineers selected this year by the Young Investigator Program sponsored by the Air Force Office of Science. The award will support his research on optimization and control of chaotic multidisciplinary simulations. "This research can make an impact on many applications including designing flexible structures, high-altitude long-endurance UAVs, and supersonic vehicles," QiQi says.

The 2014 MIT Sloan Women in Management Conference added a challenge this year: a chance for MIT women entrepreneurs to pitch their startups for a $1,000 prize. One of the two prizewinners (a tie was declared) was Accion systems, which is developing propulsion systems for small satellites. Accion was pitched by CEO and president Natalya Brikner, an AeroAstro PhD student working under Professor Paulo Lozano in the Space Propulsion Lab. 

Congratulations to winners of GA^3's 2014 PhD Research Competition: First Prize ($500) - Allie Anderson, runners-up ($250 each) - Krish Kotru and Chelsea He. The competition is part of the GA^3 Technical Communications Seminar series highlighting the best AeroAstro graduate student research while encouraging students to hone their public speaking skills.

AIAA has announced its 2014 teaching and advising awards. Honorees are: James Wiken, TA Award; Professor Hamsa Balakrishnan, Undergraduate Advising Award; Professor Ed Greitzer, Undergraduate Teaching Award.

gauger
Gauger

2. Welcome

Welcome to Dr. Nicholas Gauger, visiting from Aachen University in Germany. He's working with Prof. QiQi Wang through July.

 

3. In the picture

FIELD TRIP

visiting pratt

Professor Steven Barrett's 16.50 class (Introduction to Propulsion Systems) visited Pratt and Whitney in Hartford, Connecticut in April. After most of a semester studying theory, this was an opportunity to examine real state-of-the-art gas turbines and their components. P&W Vice President Dr. Jayant Sabnis hosted the visit, and was on hand to answer students' questions about these complex machines and help students link the theory they learned in the classroom to the full-scale devices in P&W's Customer Training Center.


OPEN HOUSE!

open house

Visitors pack the Neumann Hangar during the April 23 AeroAstro Open House where they could view vintage and new gas turbines, learn about new aircraft designs, build and launch paper rockets and egg-cushioning parachutes, and much more.

open house

Some of the hundreds of Open House guests tried their hand at flying a simulated aircraft in an activity sponsored by AeroAstro's International Center for Air Transportation.


ZERO-G STRONG

zero g

AeroAstro grad students (from l.) Todd Sheerin, Emily Calandrelli, Meghan Quadrino, Anne Marinan; Prof. Kerri Cahoy; grad student Emily Clements; and astronaut/MIT alumnae Cady Coleman were in Houston last month for Zero-G experiments, courtesy of NASA. It was the same week as the Boston Marathon so Cady provided all with Boston Strong shirts.


BATTLE OF THE BLIMPS

LTA team

Leaving their competitors crumpled on the Johnson floor, team Top Gun emerged the victors in 16.00's May 8 Blimp Battle. Nice work, team members (from left) Seth Studebaker, Nicholas (Niko) James, Madeline Haas, Rachel Katz, Edward Lopez, and Caroline Hope.

 

Barrett
Barrett

 

4. Promotions

Professor Steven Barrett has been promoted to associate professor without tenure. Department Head Jaime Peraire wrote, "Steven has made outstanding contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms by which aviation impacts the environment. Steven is also an excellent classroom teacher and has made important service contributions to the department." The promotion is effective as of July 1.

Dr. Ngoc Cuong Nguyen has been promoted to principal research scientist. In announcing the promotion, Department Head Jaime Peraire wrote, "Cuong is an outstanding scholar with an impressive record of contributions in the fields of numerical simulation and optimization, and model order reduction."  

 

alvar
Saenz-Otero

Leveson
Leveson

Cahoy
Cahoy

5. Newsbriefs

Dr. Alvar Saenz-Otero is the new director of AeroAstro's Space Systems Lab, succeeding Professor Dave Miller who was recently named NASA Chief Technologist. Alvar, who joined SSL in 1995, was made associate director in 2008. He's also the main force behind the annual Zero Robotics high school student competition.

Professor Nancy Leveson writes, "Our recent workshop on my new hazard and accident analysis techniques had about 240 attendees from just about every industry (although the biggest group was from aviation) and 20 countries (five continents)." The presentation slides are available online.

The NASA New Investigator Program in Earth Science has granted Professor Kerri Cahoy funds for the research "Data Analysis and Retrieval from Nanosatellite Microwave Radiometers." This will help develop methods for obtaining quality thermal weather images from newly-miniaturized instruments on CubeSats such as the microwave radiometer on the Microsized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite and future Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration mission.

Joyce Light, AeroAstro HQ admin assistant, asks all to mark their calendars for October 22-24, 2014 when AeroAstro will continue its 100th aniversary celebration "100 Years of MIT Aerospace" with a Centennial Symposium. She says that the symposium will look back over the past 100 years exploring the history of aviation and spaceflight, and will celebrate the AeroAstro men and women who played a critical role in both the development of the department and of the aerospace field. Details to follow, all from the department will be invited.

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If you know of events, honors, activities, or other information you'd like to see in the next issue of AeroAstro enews, please send to wlitant@mit.edu.

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