Three students selected to the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program
Sydney Dolan, Ethan Plaehn and Stephen Scheuerle were selected to the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.
Each Fellowship consists of three years of support during a five-year fellowship period. Currently, NSF provides a stipend of $34,000 to the Fellow and a cost-of-education allowance of $12,000 to the graduate degree-granting institution for each Fellow who uses the fellowship support in a fellowship year.
The NSF offered 2,050 Fellowships in 2019.
Dolan earned her bachelor’s from Purdue in December and will move to MIT for graduate school. At Purdue, she was an AAE ambassador and co-founder of Women in Aerospace.
Plaehn’s main focus during graduate school at Purdue will be the research and development of rotating detonation engines (RDEs). RDEs are a relatively new method of propulsion that have the potential to significantly improve aircraft and rocket engine efficiency. His work will establish a better understanding of injection, mixing, and ignition physics in these combustion devices and support the development of this advanced concept.
“I am honored to have been selected to receive an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Thousands of deserving applications do not receive funding, so I am humbled that mine was chosen,” Plaehn says. “I would not have been able to submit a successful application without the help from Professor Carson Slabaugh, Andrew Pratt, the graduate research teams at Zucrow Labs, and my letter of recommendation writers. They helped prepare me and my application for the rigorous selection process involved with the NSF GRFP. I am excited to use the support from the NSF fellowship to advance high-pressure propulsion research and work with the students, faculty, and clients at Purdue’s Zucrow Labs.”
Scheuerle is a master’s student under Kathleen Howell, Hsu Lo Distinguished Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His focus is astrodynamics, the study of the motion of spacecraft and natural satellites due to various forces that exist in space. The most recognized approach in the field is the 2-body problem, also known as Keplerian Orbit, which represents the dynamic response of one object to another due to the gravitational force interacting between one another. Adding additional celestial bodies to the system introduces unique solutions that would otherwise be impossible in the 2-body problem.
Scheuerle’s research explores subsets of the 3-body and 4-body problems, with a focus around the Earth-Moon system. The overall goal of the research is to assess the efficacy of machine learning techniques in multi-body systems, which includes how machine learning methods can be used to analyze nonlinear models and how to utilize those tools to design spacecraft trajectories.
“The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program provides selected students from across the nation with the resources necessary to further research in STEM-related disciplines. I am honored and humbled to have been selected for this fellowship, and look forward to the new research opportunities this creates," Scheuerle says. “I would like to express gratitude to my advisor Professor Kathleen Howell, and the Multi-Body Dynamics Research Group for all the help they’ve given me. I would also like to thank my friends and family for the incredible support throughout this process.”