Congratulations to the 2020 Aerospace Engineering Honors Class

On Friday, May 1, the Department of Aerospace Engineering Honors class of 2020 presented their final presentations via Zoom. Each summer, the department invites the top 15-20% of rising sophomores into the Aerospace Honors Program, where they take on a more challenging sequence of select major courses. Only about half of invited students choose to pursue the "Honors Citation" by completing a three-semester research project, which culminates with a conference paper and presentation of their work. 

“As a department, we are constantly impressed by the dedication of our students to a challenging curriculum, especially under these unique circumstances,” said Raymond Sedwick, professor and director for the Aerospace Engineering Honors Program.

CLASS OF 2020 HONORS

• Adam Boro “Geometric Detection Imaging Research for Space Applications”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Alison Flatau
  Post-graduation plans: Chief Marketing Officer at tech startup, QuikTok
• Bryn Fanger “Plasma Potential Measurements of a Helicon Plasma using an Emissive Probe”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Raymond Sedwick 
  Post-graduation plans: Graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin
• Charles Flanagan “Control of a Quadrotor Swarm for a Visual Light Display”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Derek Paley
  Post-graduation plans: Aerospace engineer at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR)
• Nathan Jacobs "Classification and Analysis of Schlieren Images of Boundary Layers of Hypersonic Flows Over Blunt-Nose Cones”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Stuart Laurence
  Post-graduation plans: Naval Acquisition Development Program (NADP) at NAVAIR
• Evan Kramer "Uncertainty Analysis of a Practical Method for Inferring Surface Heat Flux"
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Christopher Cadou
  Post-graduation plans: Will be attending graduate school at MIT in the M.S./Ph.D. program working in the Space Systems Laboratory on a novel spinning aperture space telescope design
• Zach Lacey “Post-Flight Analysis of Strata-1: Granular Segregation of Glass Spheres”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Christine Hartzell
  Post-graduation plans: Graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles
  pursuing an M.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, specializing in dynamics and controls for robotic systems, and the goal to continue to a Ph.D.
• Zach Lachance “Utilization of Low-Cost Electro-Optical Sensors as a Force Sensor”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Akin
  Post-graduation plans: Graduate school
• Parker Main “Blown Boundary Layer Drag Reduction on a Cylinder”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Anya Jones
  Post-graduation plans: Design engineer at Middle River Aerostructure Systems
• Christoph Neisess “Identifying Second-Mode Wave Packets in a Hypersonic Boundary Layer Using a Convolutional Neural Network”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Stuart Laurence
  Post-graduation plans: Aerospace engineer at Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC) Tunnel 9
• Ramin Rafizadeh “Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) on the Far-Side of the Moon”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Akin (UMD) & Dr. Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay (NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL)
  Post-graduation plans: Systems engineer at NASA JPL
• Noah Schulz “Mapping Unknown Environments with Autonomous Vehicles”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Michael Otte
  Post-graduation plans: Engineer at NAVAIR
• Shivam Soni “Closed-loop feedback control for soft pneumatic actuators”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Derek Paley
  Post-graduation plans: Graduate school at Stanford University, aerospace engineering
• Christian Sorteberg “O.S. 35AX Engine Testing for Quad Biplane Integration”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Inderjit Chopra
  Post-graduation plans: Systems engineer at Lockheed Martin
• Shreyas Srivathsan “Design For A Quad-Rotor Biplane With Variable Pitch Rotors For An Autonomous Control Mechanism”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Inderjit Chopra
  Post-graduation plans: Graduate school at Georgia Institute of Technology
• Lucia Stainer “Optimization of Cargo Packing for In-Space Telescopes”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. Alison Flatau
• Amanda Wilmot “EUCLID Satellite Servicing Arms”
  Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Akin
  Post-graduation plans: Engineer at the Naval Surfaces Warfare Center

“As we near the end of an unprecedented semester, I would like to congratulate these dedicated students for fulfilling the requirements of the Honors Citation, and to commend all of our students for their continued efforts in pursuit of their aerospace engineering degree,” said Sedwick. “Well done!”

“As we near the end of an unprecedented semester, I would like to congratulate these dedicated students for fulfilling the requirements of the Honors Citation, and to commend all of our students for their continued efforts in pursuit of their aerospace engineering degree. Well done!”

Professor Raymond Sedwick

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