AIAA Announces 2019 Graduate Award Winners Written 9 September 2019

CONTACT: Michele McDonald  
703.264.7542 
michelem@aiaa.org

September 9, 2019 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Foundation has announced the ten winners of its 2019 graduate awards.

Through its Foundation and supported by nearly 30,000 members, AIAA awards academic scholarships and STEM education awards to support the next generation of aerospace professionals.

Each academic year the AIAA Foundation presents the Orville and Wilbur Wright Graduate Awards. These $5,000 awards, given in memory of the Wright brothers’ contributions to the evolution of flight, recognize two full-time graduate students. 

Applications for the 2020 scholarships are being accepted from 1 October to 31 January.

The winners are:

• David Morata, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California
• Derek Nichols, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

Mike Lotto, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, received the Neil Armstrong Graduate Award. This $5,000 award honors the character and achievements of the late astronaut, military pilot and educator, Neil A. Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the moon. 

Jonathan T. McCready and Joshua Glazer, both from North Carolina State University (NCSU), are the inaugural recipients of the Dr. Hassan A. Hassan Graduate Award in Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Hassan established the award shortly before his death in January 2019 to entice top NCSU aerospace engineering seniors, who also are AIAA members, to earn their graduate degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) in aerospace engineering at NCSU. Typically, there will be one $5,000 award per year, but this year former students, friends and colleagues raised additional funds in memory of Dr. Hassan so two $5,000 awards could be presented.

Garrett Marshall, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, received the John Leland Atwood Graduate Award. Established in 1999, the $1,250 award, sponsored by endowments from Rockwell and what is now The Boeing Company and named in memory of John Leland “Lee” Atwood, former chief executive officer of Rockwell, North America, recognizes a student actively engaged in research in the areas covered by the technical committees (TC) of AIAA. 

Four AIAA TCs also presented graduate awards:

• Young-Young Shen, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, received the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) TC’s $2,500 Guidance, Navigation and Control Graduate Award.


• Regis Thedin, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, received the Modeling and Simulation TC’s $3,500 Luis de Florez Graduate Award.


• Adam Weiss, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California, received the Propellants and Combustion TC’s $1,250 Martin Summerfield Propellants and Combustion Graduate Award.


• Veeraraghava Raju Hasti, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, received the Air Breathing Propulsion TC’s $1,000 Gordon C. Oates Air Breathing Propulsion Graduate Award.

Please visit the AIAA Foundation’s Scholarship and Graduate Awards section for more information.

About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 85 countries, and 97 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit www.aiaa.org, or follow us on Twitter @AIAA.

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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 
12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 200, Reston, VA 20191-5807  
Phone: 703.264.7558 Fax: 703.264.7551  www.aiaa.org