The 2nd annual AIAA Greater Huntsville Section’s Young Professionals (YP) Symposium was held on 23–24 October, in Huntsville, AL. This year, the AIAA Greater Huntsville Section worked with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and the American Astronautical Society to establish a connection between the YP Symposium and the Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium (VBS). This mutually beneficial relationship encouraged YP involvement in VBS and allowed YPs more exposure to the senior executives generally in attendance at VBS.
The YP Symposium provided an opportunity for young professionals to give technical presentations to a group of peers and promoted opportunities for interaction, both technical and non-technical, with senior professionals in attendance. With 130 attendees, including 81 young professionals, this year’s symposium was a huge success. Over 30 young professionals affiliated with 13 organizations spanning government, industry, and academia delivered technical presentations on a wide range of topics over both days. The first day’s activities ended with an evening networking social sponsored by Jacobs.
In addition to technical presentations, the symposium included panel discussions and keynote speakers alongside professional development and networking opportunities. The first panel was on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). This panel fostered an interesting discussion among UAS technical experts and program managers in the field of UAS. The second panel discussed the benefits of AIAA membership and involvement. It included members of the Greater Huntsville Section who are involved in all aspects of AIAA ranging from the local student section to participation in AIAA forums as part of a technical committee.
Leaders from the local aerospace and defense communities delivered keynote speeches at this year’s symposium. The first keynote speaker was Alicia Ryan, CEO of LSINC. Ryan shared insight into the business side of the industry with a room full of engineers who hold a more technical focus. The second keynote speaker was Lt. Gen. James H. Dickinson, commanding general of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command and Joint Component Functional Command for Integrated Missile Defense. Lt. Gen. Dickinson shared his experience directing some of the most cutting-edge technology being developed in aerospace. He spoke of the exciting opportunities in “Rocket City,” insisting that YPs not only have big shoes to fill, but the responsibility of ensuring the next generation is ready to step up.
The final keynote speaker was Jody Singer, deputy director of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. She spoke of the exciting work being done by NASA in preparation for the journey to Mars and emphasized the importance of the next-generation STEM workforce. Singer’s keynote led directly into a mentorship event, a highly anticipated addition to this year’s symposium.
The mentorship event, sponsored by Aerojet Rocketdyne, provided the opportunity for attendees to sit down with senior professionals and learn from their experience. The 11 themed tables focused on various topics such as professional development, executive leadership, women in space, public speaking, entrepreneurship, and work/life balance. The mentors for this event included CEOs, program managers, presidents, and directors representing government, government contracts, and industry partners.
Immediately following the closing of the 2017 AIAA YP Symposium, attendees were invited to attend the Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium welcome reception and student poster contest.
For more information on the AIAA YP Symposium, please visit www.aiaayps.org.
The Society and Aerospace Technology Integration and Outreach Committee (SAT IOC) has a key objective to engage in topics linking society and technology. Even though aerospace technology specifies a key focal point of this committee, occasionally, it is equally beneficial to glance at the impact of technology across a wide range of different engineering disciplines for a given topic. This train of thought can also be expanded to multidisciplinary subjects. Sustainability is an exemplary topic in this regard. Whether related to reusable launch vehicles or energy-efficient airport buildings, the role of sustainability is of paramount importance. Dependent on the discipline of interest, interpretations about sustainability take an abundant number of thought-provoking paths in engineering.
On 9 November, the 2017 Orange County Engineering Council (OCEC) Leaders Forum, with the theme “Sustainability in Engineering,” was hosted by the OCEC in Orange County, CA. This event enabled discussions about sustainability across a broad range of engineering disciplines through a panel session with key experts in their respective fields. The event addressed cross-disciplinary sustainability opportunities in Aerospace, Transportation, Civil, Architectural, Computer, and Environmental Engineering; and explored related collaboration avenues within Southern California for local companies, universities, professional societies, government agencies, and the OCEC. Moreover, cross-disciplinary discussions and those research endeavors conducted in conjunction with the event enabled the foundation for one SAT IOC’s future conference articles on sustainability in engineering that will be authored by the Springs of Dreams Corporation, a nonprofit organization in Southern California dedicated to enlightening society and enriching human lives through knowledge and education.
Roman Glorim is the winner of the 2017 AIAA Joseph Freitag Sr. Award. Mr. Freitag was a 1922 graduate of the Daimler Ausbildung and Training School in Stuttgart, Germany, and became a successful designer at the Sperry Gyroscope Company in New York. Through the AIAA Foundation, this award was created by Freitag’s sons to memorialize their father and provide inspiration of what can be done with a Daimler education. Mr. Glorim completed his apprenticeship as an IT Electronic Systems Technician and was chosen by the faculty of the school to receive the award. He intends to complete his engineering studies in the field of Business Informatics and continue his professional career at Daimler AG.
The K–12 STEM Outreach Committee would like to recognize outstanding STEM events in each section. Each month we will highlight an outstanding K–12 STEM activity; if your section would like to be featured, please contact Elishka Jepson (elishka.jepson@raytheon.com).
The AIAA Greater Huntsville Section supported Alabama’s Regional Future City Competition on 14 January 2017. The section sponsored a $150 award for the team that displayed innovative aerospace technology in their city that improved the lives of their citizens. Twenty-three student teams gathered under the Saturn V rocket at the Davidson Center to display their Future Cities to a number of judges. Everyone was impressed with the amount of creativity, innovation, and thought that these young students brought to the competition. They truly stood tall even in comparison to the Saturn V.
Team Sithena from D. A. Smith Middle School in Ozark, AL, took home the AIAA award with their blimp that provided surveillance for its citizens and notified local authority of any crime or danger. In addition, it assisted citizens with navigation around the city.
It’s good to know that the future generation has already started to consider taking existing technology and improving it for everyday use. Congratulations to Team Sithena, as well as the other 22 teams that participated in the Future City Competition.
AIAA Aerospace Communication Award
The AIAA Aerospace Communications Award was presented to Stuart Linsky at the 2017 Joint Conference of the AIAA International Communications Satellite Systems Conference and the Ka and Broadband Communications Conference in Trieste, Italy, on 19 October. The award honored his “technical leadership, innovation and development of protected satellite communications systems.” Mr. Linksy is a vice president for Engineering and Global Product Development at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.
Space Processing Award
The AIAA Space Processing Award was presented to Dr. Mark Weislogel at the 33rd Annual Gravitational and Space Research meeting on 27 October in Renton, WA. The award was to honor his “decades of leadership in Space Shuttle and ISS zero-g fluids scientific experimentation and global public outreach via design and publicity of creative fluids activities onboard ISS.” Dr. Weislogel is a professor at Portland State University.
Charbel Farhat, an AIAA Fellow and technical expert in the design of complex aircraft structures, has been awarded the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) 2017 Spirit of St. Louis Medal for sustained theoretical and computational research contributions in the area of fluid-structure interaction, which have been applied to solving mission critical problems in aeronautics. His methodologies also have been applied in the automotive and marine industries, in addition to naval engineering, according to ASME.
Farhat, chair of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, received the medal at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. Farhat serves as director of the Army High Performance Computing Research Center at Stanford and is a member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.
The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Student Branch recently hosted Tom Morgenfeld as a Distinguished Lecturer for branch members and members of the AIAA Dayton/Cincinnati Section. Morgenfeld gave a presentation on his years as an X-35 test pilot. In addition, the evening also included a poster session by sophomores at the University of Dayton. The students were given the design challenge “How can flight be used on a day-to-day basis by a common man?” Using the framework of Ideation, Disruption and Aha (IDA pedagogy), the students worked in teams and had six weeks to generate innovative ideas of how flight can make a tangible impact on society. They presented their results to the evenings’ attendees.
Stanley L. Lamkin died 21 September. He was 70 years old.
Mr. Lamkin graduated from Old Dominion College in 1969 with a B.S. degree in Physics. He also received an M.S. degree (1974) and Ph.D. (1994) in Applied Physics. He retired from Hewlett Packard as a project manager specializing in programs for government and military customers in 2013.
A member of the AIAA Hampton Road Section, Lamkin was its vice chair and programs officer from 1993 to 1994. He was also the section chair from 1994 to 1995, and was the section’s RAC representative from 1995 to 1996.
A Class of 1990 AIAA Associate Fellow, Lamkin was also recognized by Sigma Xi in 1990. In 1991, his work at NASA was recognized with a Superior Accomplishment Award, and he received an MVP from Hewlett Packard in 2005 and 2007 for his outstanding accomplishments.
Howard M. “Mike” Brilliant died on 23 September.
Brilliant attended Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. He went to the University of Pittsburgh on an ROTC scholarship and received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
He was an instructor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and he also taught engineering at Wright State University and Union Graduate College. He served 24 years in the U.S. Air Force including three tours at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Brilliant went to work for GE in Cincinnati before moving to their Schenectady location in the research center and power systems.
He joined AIAA in 1964 and was chair of the Northeastern New York Section from 1994 to 1995, and served in several other section positions. He received a special service citation in 2007 for work on the Annual Tech Valley Engineering Symposium, and in 2004 he received a membership award for “increasing the section’s membership by planning and implementing effective new member recruitment and retention campaigns.”
Kinge Okauchi died on 26 September. He was 93 years old.
After finishing his first semester at San Jose State University, he was sent to an internment camp during World War II. After the war, he re-enrolled at the university. In 1949, he transferred to Stanford University, earning his Bachelor of Science degree and his master’s degree in aeronautical engineering. He began work at the Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake. Okauchi worked for 30 years in the Ballistics Division of the Research Department, Aeronautics Branch at Michelson Lab, retiring in 1980. He started his career early in the development of rocketry, and later made the comment: “Nobody knew much about rockets back then and I didn’t know much about rockets, so I fit right in.”
Okauchi was a 60-plus year member of the AIAA China Lake Section. He joined the American Rocket Society when he started working at China Lake in 1950. He was one of the charter members of the China Lake Section when AIAA was formed in 1963. During the section’s 50th-anniversary ceremony in 2013, he was honored as one of the longest-serving members.
