Associate professor Carolin Frueh, left, receives the CT Sun award from William Crossley, the head of Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Distinguished associate professor Carolin Frueh has been selected by her faculty colleagues as the 2024 recipient of the C.T. Sun Research Award from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. This prestigious award is named after Chin-Teh Sun, professor emeritus of the school.

Frueh’s research focuses on space domain awareness and space traffic management in the near-Earth and cislunar regions. Her work includes understanding the characterization of satellites and space debris, sensor tasking, low observability systems, information quantification and retrieval, and the application of machine learning.

Frueh completed her PhD in Physics with a specialization in Astronomy from the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 2011. She has been on the faculty in Purdue’s AAE program since 2014, and in 2023 received the title of Harold DeGroff Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Chin-Teh Sun, a leader in composite materials research, joined the School of Aeronautics, Astronautics, and Engineering Sciences in 1968. Upon his retirement in 2016, he was named the Neil A. Armstrong Distinguished Professor Emeritus in AAE. Sun is a fellow of AIAA, ASME and ASC, and he received numerous national and international research awards, in addition to being the first recipient of the eponymous faculty research award awarded by the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.