During the 2015 summer months, four AAE Undergraduate students took part in a study abroad research experience at Technical University Braunschweig (TUB), located in Braunschweig, Germany. Aleksandra Dervisevic, Noah Gold, Jay Millane, and Andres Velez-Valencia participated in independent research opportunities and had the opportunity to choose a research project that covered one or more of the five AAE program concentrations: Aerodynamics, Design, Propulsion, Dynamics and Control, and Structures. Upon successful completion of the research experience, students gained six hours of technical elective credit and three hours of general elective credit towards their plan of study.

AAE Associate Professor Wenbin Yu and his students recently discovered the Mechanics of Structures Genome as a new approach to modeling composite structures and materials.

AnalySwift LLC, a commercial software provider, has launched SwiftComp, technology that provides efficient, high-fidelity modeling of composites and reduces analysis times without a loss of accuracy, while capturing details of composites that were unreachable using traditional methods. The company licensed the technology, which was developed by Wenbin Yu, associate professor in Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

US News & World Report published their annual rankings of undergraduate programs. The College of Engineering maintained its #9 ranking, and the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics have moved up in the rankings this year to the fourth spot.

AAE Professor and Head of School, Tom Shih, was recently awarded the 2015 Energy Systems Award by the AIAA, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Dr. Ellen Ochoa, director of Johnson Space Center, has named Mark S. Geyer as deputy director of the center. Geyer will transitioned to the position in mid-September.

The Pentagon has named C. Douglas Ebersole as the new civilian leader of Air Force Research Laboratory.

AAE Professor of Practice, Daniel Dumbacher named Associate Fellow in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Aerospace engineering students at Purdue University are teaming with local second-graders to find out if fireflies can light up in space.
The collaborative experiment emerged from a question about fireflies brought up in Maggie Samudio's second-grade class at Cumberland Grade School in West Lafayette. She emailed the question to Steven Collicott, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.