December 14, 2007 – Reston, Virginia – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is pleased to announce that the following awards will be presented during the 46th Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, January 7-10, 2008, at the Grand Sierra Resort (formerly the Reno Hilton) in Reno, Nevada. The recipients will be honored in a public ceremony hosted by AIAA President Paul Nielsen on January 8.
The 2007 J. Leland Atwood Award, co-sponsored by AIAA and The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), will be presented to Helen Reed, professor and head of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, for important contributions to space systems engineering and space systems design education.
The 2008 Faculty Advisor Award will be presented to Andrew Arena, professor and Maciula Chair in Engineering at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Oklahoma State University and deputy director at the NASA Oklahoma Space Grant Consortium in Stillwater, Oklahoma, for his tireless promotion of and dedication to aeronautics education in Oklahoma.
The 2008 James A. Van Allen Space Environments Award will be presented to Alan Tribble, senior managing engineer at Rockwell Collins, Inc. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for outstanding leadership, research, and scholarship in the emerging field of space environments and effects and their influence on spacecraft design and engineering, in the tradition of James Van Allen.
The 2008 Lawrence Sperry Award will be presented to Ryan Starkey, assistant professor and McAnally Faculty Fellow in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, for outstanding contributions in multi¬disciplinary hypersonic vehicle design and propulsion/airframe integration/optimization for both access to space and hypersonic cruise vehicles, and computational chemistry for combustion and plasma analysis.
The 2008 Losey Atmospheric Sciences Award will be presented to Wayne Sand, aviation consultant at Big Sky Weather Consulting in Bigfork, Montana, for significant accomplishments as a researcher, educator, consultant, and leader of aviation weather research, and for his impact on the advancement of aerospace research and aviation safety.
The 2008 Pendray Aerospace Literature Award will be presented to Vigor Yang, professor and John L. and Genevieve H. McCain Chair in Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, for significant contributions as both an author and an editor to aerospace literature, particularly in the areas of propulsion, combustion and energetics.
The 2007 AIAA Foundation Orville and Wilbur Wright Graduate Awards will be presented to the following graduate students participating in research endeavors as a part of their engineering/science graduate studies: Marshall Galbraith at the University of Cincinnati; Martin Ozimek at Purdue University; Justin Richeson at the University of Maryland; and Thomas Schwartzentruber at the University of Michigan.
The 2007 Willy Z. Sadeh Graduate Student Award In Space Engineering and Space Sciences will be presented to Joshua Johnson at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.
The 2007 Abe M. Zarem Award For Distinguished Achievement will be presented to Roelof Vos of the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, and Phillip Cunio of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The 2007 Abe M. Zarem Educator Award will be presented to Ronald Barrett of the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, and Geoffrey Landis of the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, to recognize their mentorship and guidance of the recipients of the Abe M. Zarem Award for Distinguished Achievement.
In addition, the 2008 AIAA Associate Fellows will be honored in a special evening ceremony on January 7.
For more information about the AIAA Honors and Award program, please contact Carol Stewart at carols@aiaa.org or 703.264.7623.
AIAA advances the state of aerospace science, engineering, and technological leadership. Headquartered in suburban Washington, D.C., the Institute serves over 35,000 members in 65 regional sections and 79 countries. AIAA membership is drawn from all levels of industry, academia, private research organizations, and government. For more information, visit www.aiaa.org.