Today is the Purdue Day of Giving. Gifts to AAE support one of five areas: AAE Critical Needs fund, Purdue Space Day, Purdue Hyperloop, Zucrow Building fund, or the Zero Gravity fund.

A team of 7 AAE students is one of four university teams selected as finalists in the NASA BIG Idea Challenge to design an inflatable that could deliver humans to Mars. Team members are students of AAE Assistant Professor Michael Grant and Visiting Professor Sarag Saikia.

AAE senior Paul Witsberger is the recipient of the 2016 Herbert F. Rogers Award. The honor is given annually to a senior who is "deemed the most worthy and deserving as determined by her/his contributions to the growth of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics in fostering engineering as an academic discipline."

Eight AAE graduate students were chosen to receive 2016 College of Engineering awards in teaching, research and service.

AAE junior Benjamin Vernhes is president of Purdue AIAA and is also a School of Aeronautics and Astronautics Ambassador.

AAE Assistant Professor Tyler Tallman has been selected to receive the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics Elmer F. Bruhn Award for 2016.

AAE PhD student Kshitij Mall is president of The Mars Society Purdue Chapter.

The 2016 Purdue Senior Design used the vision Dr. Buzz Aldrin outlined in his book “Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration” to develop plans for a lunar base that would serve as a stepping stone for a human mission to Mars.

AAE Professor William Crossley is the 2016 recipient of the College of Engineering’s Leadership Excellence Award.

AAE Associate Professor Vikas Tomar has been named a University Faculty Scholar.