May | June | July | August 2019

GT-AE Celebrates Prox-1 Launch

The June 25 launch of the Georgia Tech-built Prox-1 CubeSat marked the end of a long journey for hundreds of current and former AE students. It also launched their careers.. read more

Faculty News @GT-AE

The American Astronautical Society elected AE professor Panagiotis Tsiotras as a vigor yamg

Fellow of the Society, the highest-ranking membership offered. read more... Prof. Vigor Yang was chosen to receive an honorary doctorate from Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University, one of the largest and most influential universities in Asia. read more ... Prof. Karen M. Feigh was chosen to attend the prestigious Frontiers of Engineering karen feigh

Symposium, to be held Sept. 25-27 Charleston, South Carolina....

Regents Professor Dimitri Mavris has been named the director of the Professional Master’s in Applied Systems Engineering (PMASE) program at Georgia Tech. read more ... “Complete Determination of the Velocity Gradient Tensor Upstream of the Flame Front with High-Speed Tomo-PIV/Dual-Plane-PIV/OH-PLIF Measurements” a paper co-authored by Prof. Tim Lieuwen, has been chosen to receive the 2018 Propellants and Combustion Best Paper Award by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). read more ... Prof. E. Glenn Lightsey has

been selected as the AE School's David Lewis Professor of Space Systems Technology. read more... Prof. Mitchell L. R. Walker was one of five expert panelists invited to explore the future of space propulsion systems at the inaugural John Glenn Memorial Symposium, hosted by the NASA Glenn Research

Center and the American Astronautical Society. read more.... The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recognized AE professor J.V.R. Prasad, and his colleagues with the Best Paper Award Kelly Griendling

2016-2017 for an article they co-authored, "Active Control of a UAV Helicopter with a Slung Load for Precision Airborne Cargo Delivery." read more... Prof. Marilyn J. Smith, director of Georgia Tech's multi-university Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence (VLRCOE), was a featured speaker at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement's (IDGA) 4th Annual International Military Helicopter USA. read more ... AE alumna Dr. Kelly Griendling has joined the AE faculty in the newly created position of lecturer. find out more

Student News @ GT-AE

Sustain Alive - a 13.5-foot, 110-pound rocket designed and built mainly by AE undergrads - soared above dozens of competitors to take home three top awards at the Third Annual Spaceport America Cup fly-off, held June 18-22 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. read more

octoral student Benjamin Leon has been chosen to receive the prestigious 2019 United Technologies Corporation Fellowship for his myriad research contributions to rotorcraft research while at Georgia Tech. read more... A talk given by AE post-doc Dr. Hisham Ali before the 16th International Planetary Probe Workshop in Oxford, England was selected as the best student oral presentation at the 2019 session

. read more... The scholarship of first-year AE graduate student Sara Miller has been recognized by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) with the 2018 Aerospace Power Systems Best Student Paper award. read more... Team Icarus, a group of 10 Georgia Tech students working in Prof. Evangelos Theodorou's Autonomous Control and Decision Systems lab, has been selected to compete for a grand prize of $1million in the final stage of the 2019 AlphaPilot Challenge. read more

From the Chair

This summer, the AE School reached the pinnacle of pop culture when it was featured in a Google ad as an answer to the question "How do I become an astronaut?"

Google's on to something - I have no doubt that some of the more than 1,500 students on the AE campus will be headed into space in the coming years. They are smart, adventurous, and well-educated. Their vivid ambitions confirm the wisdom of Google's prediction.

But there's more to space exploration than donning a space suit. The research that will launch those future missions and underwrite their success is being done right here, right now. Just glance at Prof. E. Glenn Lightsey's work on CubeSats or Prof. Kyriakos Vamvoudakis's work on autonomy.

Or meet our two newest space faculty, Prof. Koki Ho and Prof. John Dec.

Check out the simulation software developed Prof. Marilyn Smith that is allowing us to expand our use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

These are the people who are defining questions that Google hasn't asked. Yet.

And they are not alone. Two weeks ago, when our faculty put out a request for undergrads to fill openings in 40+ research projects, they were flooded with inquiries and resumes. A recent survey of our graduating students indicates that 80 percent of them have been involved in research.

These are the people who'll be answering those Google queries.

AE Alums Recall Apollo's Moon Landing

On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Mission, we are proud to share the recollections of three AE alums:
Wilton Rooks, Marc Dash and Steve Justice

NASA Administrator James Bridenstine visits the AE School read more

GT-AE Alumni News

Gen. James C. McConville, MSAE '90, took over as the Army’s top officer during ceremonies that were held in Washington, D.C. on Friday, August 9. A decorated helicopter pilot, McConville is the first aviator to serve as the Army’s chief. read more... Congratulations go out to Jesse Kallman, MSAE '10 has been promoted to the position of president of Airbus Aerial & Airbus Defence & Space Intelligence, North America. read more...And congratulations go out to Maxime Gariel PhD AE '10, Vlad Popescu PhD AE, '13, Phillip Jones Ph.D. ECE '08, and Allen Wu PhD AE '10, whose small aviation startup, Xwing, is championing on-demand air transportation. read more.