AAE alumna Ashley (Ruic) Faires is the winner of the 2016 Purdue Engineering Alumni Association (EAA) Young Engineering Alumnus Award, which is given to a graduate of Purdue's College of Engineering who is 35 years old or younger who has achieved significant rapid advancement in his or her chosen field.

Ashley is presently a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, serving as an Instructor Pilot in the carrier-based E-2C Hawkeye and the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft and as the expert pilot, systems engineer, and instructor tasked with assuring quality instruction throughout the Navy’s E-2C/D fleet. During her second deployment with the fleet, Ashley piloted the first all-female combat mission of an E-2C aircraft for the US Navy. On January 25, 2012, Ashley and her four crew members, operating from the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, completed a multiple-hour mission of tactical combat management, airborne advanced warning, and command and control services over Afghanistan.

Ashley graduated from Purdue with a BSAAE in 2006. During her time as a student, Ashley interned with Rolls-Royce in Indianapolis, was in the Navy ROTC program, and participated in AAE418 “Zero-gravity Flight Experiment” class. Professor Steven Collicott, who teaches AAE418, nominated Ashley for the EAA Young Engineering Alumnus Award. Faires says she was surprised when she heard she won the award.

“I felt like such an average student when I was (at Purdue) until I was in Professor Collicott’s Zero-gravity Flight Experiment class,” she says. “Then I really got involved in doing the design, build, and test and that really helped me grow as an engineer and helped shape the rest of my career. I feel like everything started (at Purdue)."

In his nomination form, Professor Collicott noted that Ashley “was a dedicated student, working diligently with her small team to create a unique, student-designed and student-built experiment to create unique explorations of the physics of “ferrofluids.” He said she was deserving of the EAA Young Alumni Award “for her rapid advancement, consistent achievement, and application of her Purdue Engineering education in her path from Purdue AAE student to delivering operational, professional, and technical leadership, including piloting the US Navy's first all-female combat flight mission and being selected as the top pilot and systems engineer for all of the Navy's E-2C/D Hawkeye aircraft.”

Ashley will be presented with the award at a ceremony on September 9, 2016.

pictured from left to right: Air Control Officer Lt. Nydia Williams, left, Radar Operator Lt. j.g. Ashley Ellison, Plane Commander Lt. Cmdr. Tara Refo, Pilot Lt. Ashley (Ruic) Faires, and Mission Commander Lt. Cmdr. Brandy Jackson, all assigned to Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 125, pose for a photo before flying the first all-female-crewed combat mission in an E-2C Hawkeye aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). Carl Vinson and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17 are deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James R. Evans/Released)