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At first glance, a university that has no academic aeronautics department might be a curious partner for AIAA, the professional society for aerospace engineering.
Yet that is exactly the reason it makes sense, at least for the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss, in Oxford, Mississippi. With a student body that can major in any of the other major engineering disciplines, such as Biomedical, Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Geological, Mechanical, and Computer Science, Ole Miss is missing something – a dedicated academic aeronautics engineering department. That may be the rationale why it has partnered with AIAA to become the first academic institution to become a Corporate Member.
Read more about becoming an AIAA Corporate Member
The university’s National Center for Physical Acoustics (NCPA) – a research center that investigates everything from monitoring water quality to developing novel ultrasonic applications and reducing noise from supersonic jet propulsion – is leading the university’s venture into all that AIAA has to offer.
As Nathan Murray, the director of the center, points out, “The NCPA is not under an academic department. Rather, the NCPA is set up intentionally to provide a bridge between the academic, government, and industry realms as an intersecting point for expertise that energizes research and development.”
Murray, an AIAA Associate Fellow and associate professor of chemical engineering, describes the NCPA as a blend between a traditional academic research laboratory, a national laboratory, and a small business. Coincidentally, he also is director of the Mississippi Space Grant Consortium, funded by NASA to enhance and support aerospace science and technology efforts and activities, as well as promote a strong science, mathematics, and technology base at precollege, undergraduate, and graduate levels.
A big focus of both is workforce development, and that’s one area where AIAA can help.
“It’s the first time I thought about how academics and industry overlap with workforce development. How do they tie into the educational requirements that industry needs? How could academics play a role with industry partnerships?” Murray said.
AIAA Corporate Membership gives Ole Miss a direct benefit, Murray added – “an opportunity to really open up a conversation directly with industry partners on how academics can establish opportunities for students that industry really wants to see, so they are engaged from day one.”
Murray recalled talking with the chief engineer of Raytheon at an AIAA DEFENSE Forum, who said that it’s not enough to build supply chain capabilities. The industry needs to be totally and directly engaged with academics so that students can graduate and hit the ground running, rather than have companies retrain students for what they need.
“There is a strong desire to bring colleges and universities to our corporate members, and for them to be able to influence what those courses might be, so students are even better prepared for the workforce,” said Vickie Singer, AIAA senior director of Revenue Development and Corporate Membership. “They are synergizing around the topic of aerospace, preparing engineers of the future and supporting people across their career arc.”
AIAA already has student branches at 263 other colleges and universities, so it is a natural evolution for them to become Corporate Members, she added.
Check out the full list of AIAA Student Branches
At Ole Miss, students don’t just enter competitions for designing aircraft, as other universities’ participants might. They also have access to amazing opportunities: “how many [university students] are sitting in the room with the program manager at NASA Marshall (Space Flight Center) or the Air Force? That’s what I am trying to do. The AIAA program can help facilitate those interactions,” Murray said.
The benefit for students is clear: opportunities to engage with key leaders at industry giants and explore engineering internships. A good way to look at it, he noted, is to think of this program as the exhibit hall at the end of a conference, not the presentation room where the technical session is held. That’s where the networking, direct connections, and opportunities lie in wait.
Through this unique use of the Corporate Membership program, “You are bringing the academic research together with industry in an intentional way that sparks partnerships that allow for students to directly engage in those programs at the industry level,” Murray said.
“For me and my organization, the biggest payoff is the direct engagement with industry leaders. That’s huge. This is advancing and energizing the conversation at a level that I cannot do by myself.”
He added: “With AIAA’s help, industry partners can be engaged with students on day one, so that at the end of the day, we’re graduating a workforce that everybody benefits from, starting at a higher level.”
