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Five students earn major NASA graduate fellowships

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 14:36:10 +0000

Five students earn major NASA graduate fellowships Jeff Zehnder Mon, 10/12/2026 - 08:36

Jeff Zehnder

Five Smead Aerospace PhD students are being recognized with 2026 NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) fellowships.

Austin Bodin, Anna Cabra, Emily Gokie, Madison Lin, and Breno Macarenhas Pontes are recipients of the program, which sponsors graduate students who show significant potential to contribute to NASA’s goal of creating innovative new space technologies for our nation’s science, exploration and economic future.

Honorees receive funding for up to four years to conduct research and are also matched with a NASA expert, who serves as a research collaborator. Fellows also have the opportunity to conduct annual "visiting technologist" research experiences in-person at NASA centers for up to 10 weeks each year.

Smead Aerospace students have had strong representation in the NSTGRO program, with 19 winners over the past five years.

The 2026 Honorees:

Austin Bodin

3rd Year PhD Student

Advisor: Natasha Bosanac
Lab: Bosanac Group

Spacecraft trajectories that are designed to be robust require less propellant mass for unanticipated course corrections, are more likely to complete mission objectives, and are less dependent on precise navigation capabilities. My research aims to develop an automated method of designing robust low-thrust trajectories in cislunar space using funnels, graph theory, and robust optimal control. The process will involve constructing a library of funnels capturing the robustness of trajectories to dynamical uncertainty, implementing a graph-based method of assembling the funnels in sequence to both plan nominal trajectories and rapidly replan following missed thrust events, and developing a funnel-informed robust trajectory optimization method. This work will support future onboard autonomy, reduce the burden on ground operators, and allow a higher cadence of missions to cislunar space.

Anna Cabra

2nd Year PhD Student

Advisors: Jim Nabity and Xu Wang
Labs: Bioastronautics Laboratory and the Institute for Modeling Plasmas, Atmospheres, and Cosmic Dust (IMPACT)

My research focuses on developing a lower-energy method for extracting metals from lunar regolith to support long-term human exploration of the moon. Lunar soil contains valuable resources such as iron, titanium, and silicon that could be used for construction, power systems, and other infrastructure on the lunar surface. This project uses radio-frequency (RF) hydrogen plasma, a highly energized form of hydrogen gas, to separate metals at lower temperatures than conventional methods. I will investigate optimal plasma and regolith conditions to improve processing efficiency and reduce energy requirements. Ultimately, this research aims to make greater use of resources already available on the moon, reducing the need to transport materials from earth and supporting more sustainable lunar exploration.

Cabra is an awardee of both the NSTGRO and a 2025 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Program rules allow honorees to receive only one. She has chosen the NSTGRO.

Emily Gokie

1st Year PhD Student

Advisors: Penina Axelrad and Dennis Akos
Labs: COMPASS Lab and the Radio Frequency & Satellite Navigation Lab

My research will focus on developing the precision timing abilities of small spacecraft for reliable positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), particularly in the lunar domain. There is a current shortfall in timing systems and methods that function with the low operating parameters required of small satellites and that also meet the stability performance required for communication, PNT, and networking. My work will investigate methods to leverage the growing number of precision oscillators and atomic clocks onboard and distributed across in-orbit and planetary surface platforms to realize a superior reference stability. The extreme lunar environment poses several challenges, including induced frequency shifts from harsh thermal and radiation environments, pronounced relativistic effects from highly eccentric orbits, and fundamental instability of stochastic clock processes.

Gokie is an awardee of both the NSTGRO and a 2026 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Program rules allow honorees to receive only one. She has chosen the NSTGRO.

Madison Lin

2nd Year PhD Student

Advisor: Natasha Bosanac
Lab: Bosanac Group

Sustained space exploration in and beyond cislunar space requires new technologies that enable spacecraft to independently make navigation decisions. My research aims to develop and test a new approach to detect trajectory anomalies and respond using current mission constraints as well as spacecraft capabilities to inform maneuvers or trajectory replanning. The process will involve using motion primitives to detect anomalies via an isolation-based methodology as well as formulate spacecraft responses, and the full system will be validated with processor-in-the-loop testing. This work would allow for rapid trajectory correction and replanning without ground support, adapting to subsystem constraints and compensating for any previous anomalies to extend mission life and capabilities.

Breno Mascarenhas Pontes

2nd Year PhD Student

Advisor: Bob Marshall
Lab: Lightning, Atmosphere, Ionosphere, and Radiation Belt (LAIR) Group

My research goal is to develop an X-ray detector instrument capable of enabling pulsar-based autonomous spacecraft navigation, along with the supporting algorithms, while decreasing the volume, mass, and power needs. The design will use CZT/CdTe detectors for room temperature operation and compact size. In addition, it will have a wide field-of-view paired with a coded aperture mask, allowing for tracking of multiple sources simultaneously within the same exposure and avoiding slewing mechanisms. The research will involve simulation and system modeling using software such as Geant4, as well as the development of an algorithm capable of recovering the individual pulse profiles of observed pulsars that are required for navigation. The successful development of this navigation instrument could represent a major shift in space technology, especially for small satellite platforms and low-cost missions, moving away from depending on the Deep Space Network for deep-space navigation.

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New undergraduate curriculum for Smead Aerospace

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 16:27:57 +0000

New undergraduate curriculum for Smead Aerospace Jeff Zehnder Mon, 10/05/2026 - 10:27

New Courses

ASEN 1030: Aerospace Computing
ASEN 2401: Statics
ASEN 2402: Thermodynamics
ASEN 2403: Dynamics
ASEN 2501: Introduction to Astronautics
ASEN 2502: Introduction to Aeronautics
ASEN 3401: Aerospace Structures
ASEN 3402: Aerospace Heat Transfer
ASEN 3403: Aerodynamics
ASEN 3404: Aerospace Dynamics and Control
ASEN 3405: Astrodynamics
ASEN 3406: Aircraft Dynamics
ASEN 3501: Aerospace Experimental Methods
ASEN 3502: Aerospace Computational Methods
ASEN 3503: Aerospace Electronics
ASEN 4401: Aerospace Communication Systems
(Starting AY 27-28)
ASEN 4402: Aerospace Materials and Structural Analysis
(Starting TBD)
ASEN 4404: Applied Aerodynamics
(Starting AY 27-28)
ASEN 4xxx (number pending): Aeroelasticity
(Starting AY 27-28)

Aerospace classes and labs are getting an overhaul at the ��ñ��.

The Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences is in the midst of a multi-year rollout of a new undergraduate curriculum, updating courses, assignments, and hands-on experiences to meet new demands of research, education, and employers.

“The old curriculum was very ambitious when it was developed and made a lot of sense at the time, but it’s important to review your curriculum every so often, modernize it, and adjust it to the workforce and pressing issues,” said Charles Hoke, associate chair for undergraduate studies.

The new curriculum rollout began for first year students in academic year 2024-2025. It is advancing annually as those students progress. The sophomore curriculum started in 2025-2026 and the new junior curriculum began with the current fall semester.

It has brought significant changes to classroom instruction.

“We introduced five new sophomore courses last year and in August we began rolling out nine new junior courses,” said John Evans, professor and chair.

With new classroom instruction also comes new labs, including orbital trajectory projects, a flight simulation studio, construction and testing of gliders, radio signal orienteering, and hands-on experiences with direct application to real events.

“Intro to Astronautics starts with a lab that is a replica of the CO2 scrubbers from Apollo 13. Students have to fit a round peg into a square hole and try to save the astronauts,” Evans said.

A major additional benefit of the new curriculum is more flexibility and streamlined options for students transferring from other majors and universities.

“We used to teach Intro to Thermodynamics and Fluid Dynamics as a single course. Those are separate classes in most programs. That meant that if you had taken one of them in the mechanical engineering department and transferred to aerospace, even though we’re on the same campus, it didn’t map to our curriculum and you’d lose those credits,” Hoke said.

The new curriculum is also designed for scalability. The previous undergraduate program was developed in 1997, and while it has been updated repeatedly, it was intended for a much smaller student body.

“At that time, we had graduating class sizes that were around 50-60. This fall we have well over 300 first year students,” Evans said.

In designing the new curriculum and courses, faculty reviewed offerings at peer universities and changing industry needs, particularly surrounding artificial intelligence.

“Graduating students need to be AI forward,” Evans said. “They need to understand the opportunities it creates, but they also need the judgment to know when to use it. AI can be an extraordinary tool for learning, but sometimes you need to struggle with a problem long enough to build real understanding. Students need to recognize when AI can help them move forward and when they need to work through something for themselves."

Aerospace classes and labs are getting an overhaul at the ��ñ��. Smead Aerospace is in the midst of a multi-year rollout of a...

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Live Science spotlights the potential of centrifuges to create gravity in space

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 15:13:34 +0000

Live Science spotlights the potential of centrifuges to create gravity in space Jeff Zehnder Mon, 10/05/2026 - 09:13

Clark's Human Eccentric Rotator Device (HERD), a centrifuge used to test human responses to altered gravity scenarios.

Torin Clark was interviewed on the potential of centrifuges to create artificial gravity in space in a new article by Live Science.

"There's really no reason it couldn't happen. From a technical perspective, this is something that could happen in the very near future," Clark said.

Clark is an associate professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and has ongoing human subject research on the impacts of altered gravity utilizing a rotation device.

The technology is a staple of sci-fi movies, but is grounded in real science. Its use in space could mitigate the health risks astronauts face due to extended time in microgravity. The primary obstacle to its development is cost.

While sci-fi films typically portray centrifuges as a large portion of a ship or space station, Clark's work presents options for much smaller, and therefore less expensive centrifuges.

Read the full article at Live Science...

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Aerospace engineering student earns national honors for lunar dust research

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 23:15:19 +0000

Aerospace engineering student earns national honors for lunar dust research Jeff Zehnder Thu, 08/13/2026 - 17:15

Anna Cabra, a first-year doctoral student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences (AES) and at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the ��ñ��, has earned a series of prestigious awards recognizing her research on lunar dust and its implications for future human exploration of the Moon.

Cabra, who is advised by James Nabity in AES and Xu Wang of LASP and the Department of Physics, conducts research in ��ñ��’s Institute for Modeling Plasma, Atmospheres, and Cosmic Dust (IMPACT) laboratory where her research addresses one of the major challenges facing future Moon missions: lunar dust. The electrically charged, abrasive dust can adhere to everything from solar panels to instruments to spacesuits, impacting both technology and astronaut health.

Cabra’s work, which focuses on lunar dust charging dynamics, dust mitigation strategies, and in-situ resource utilization technologies that could help support long-term exploration of the Moon, was recently recognized with several awards.

At the NASA Exploration Science Forum, which took place July 21–23 at NASA Ames Research Center in California, she tied for first place in the oral presentation competition for her presentation “Advanced Electron Beam Dust Mitigation (EBDM) for Lunar Exploration and Science.” The award includes a $1,500 travel grant to support future conference participation and professional development opportunities.

At the 55th International Conference on Environmental Systems, which was held July 12-16 in Puerto Rico, she earned second place in the student poster competition for her presentation “Energy-Varied Electron Beam Dust Mitigation (EBDM) Source for Lunar Exploration.”

In addition, Cabra was named a finalist for the American Astronomical Society’s Molly K. Macauley Award, which recognizes outstanding student research and contributions related to space science and exploration and seeks to support and recognize future space industry leaders. Finalists are awarded a travel grant to attend and present their research at the annual AAS von Braun Symposium, which will take place from October 26-28 at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

“These student competitions are highly competitive and attract exceptional submissions from some of the most promising young scientists in space science,” said Wang. “These recognitions highlight both the quality of Anna’s work and the significance of her contributions to lunar exploration research. We expect even greater achievements from her in the future.”

Anna Cabra is a doctoral student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences (AES) and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the ��ñ��.

Cabra graduated from ��ñ�� in 2025 with a bachelor’s in physics and received a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Her interest in lunar exploration began during her undergraduate studies at the IMPACT lab, when she investigated how lunar dust moves when exposed to solar wind plasma and explored technologies for dust separation and mitigation. Cabra’s research will continue advancing technologies to make future lunar and human exploration safer and more sustainable.

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Former Byram Distinguished Visiting Professor dies

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 22:56:24 +0000

Former Byram Distinguished Visiting Professor dies Jeff Zehnder Thu, 08/13/2026 - 16:56

Eberhard Gill, the 2023 Byram Distinguished Visiting Professor (DVP), has died.

A leading space engineering researcher, Gill only recently retired from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He died July 16.

As the Byram DVP, he spent a portion of 2023 at the ��ñ�� collaborating with faculty and students in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

He was highly regarded in the astrodynamics community and was an author on more than 200 journal articles and conference papers as well as four textbooks.

His full obituary is posted on the TU Delft website.

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Three aerospace grad students earn Amelia Earhart Fellowships

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:40:59 +0000

Three aerospace grad students earn Amelia Earhart Fellowships Jeff Zehnder Mon, 07/20/2026 - 08:40

Jeff Zehnder

Three aerospace graduate students have earned 2026 Zonta Amelia Earhart Fellowships.

The program, open to students worldwide, annually recognizes 30 women pursuing doctoral degrees in aerospace engineering and space sciences. The fellowship seeks to expand the number of women in the aerospace industry to reach gender equity.

The 2026 honorees from Smead Aerospace are PhD students Kristen Amarell, Nicole Rote, and Amrita Singh.

��ñ�� and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are tied for the most honorees in 2026, with three each.

Zonta International is a global organization of professionals empowering women through service and advocacy. The Fellowship was established in 1938 in honor of famed pilot and Zonta member, Amelia Earhart.

Find out more about our 2026 honorees:

Kristen Amarell

4th Year PhD Student

Advisors: Daniel Scheeres and Jay McMahon
Labs: Celestial and Spaceflight Mechanics Lab (CSML) and the Orbital Research Cluster for Celestial Applications (ORCCA)

My research focuses on developing autonomous spacecraft guidance algorithms that will enable future lunar, planetary, and deep-space missions to operate safely in the presence of uncertainty. I combine optimal control, reachability theory, and spaceflight dynamics to develop a mission-informed guidance framework that improves the probability of mission success and enhances crew safety.

Receiving an award associated with one of aviation's most influential pioneers is deeply humbling. I'm grateful for the mentors, colleagues, friends, and family who have supported me along the way, and honored to join a community of fellows whose work is shaping the future of flight and space exploration. With the support of this fellowship, I hope to keep advancing spaceflight autonomy while helping build a more balanced and inclusive aerospace field.

Nicole Rote

3rd year PhD student

Advisor: Torin Clark
Lab: Bioastronautics Lab

My research focuses on modeling and predicting human states in aerospace environments to improve human performance and resilience. My current work aims to unobtrusively predict pilot and astronaut spatial disorientation using machine learning models trained on physiological signals (e.g., heart rate and respiration rate), enabling life-saving countermeasures to be deployed.

I'm incredibly grateful to receive the Amelia Earhart Fellowship. It means a lot to have my work recognized by an organization with such a long history of supporting women in aerospace. Aerospace engineering has historically presented many challenges for women, and I hope to carry forward Zonta’s commitment to supporting and advancing women in the field throughout my own career.

Amrita Singh

5th year PhD Candidate

Advisor: James Nabity
Lab: Bioastronautics Lab

Within my research, I assess the robustness and reliability of specific technologies within a dusty environment through physicochemical simulations, experimental evaluation, and theoretical frameworks. I believe my work will provide critical information on how the lunar surface and dust environment affects physicochemical systems, enable the development of a framework for robust technology selection, inform dust mitigation protocols, and generate requirements for lunar missions.

It is a true privilege to join the cohort of Amelia Earhart Fellows, and I look forward to continuing to support other women in aerospace engineering and space sciences. I am excited to use this opportunity to continue my mentorship activities and help everyone feel welcome in aerospace engineering.

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Boosting aerospace engineering research and study abroad with France

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 18:28:26 +0000

Boosting aerospace engineering research and study abroad with France Jeff Zehnder Fri, 07/17/2026 - 12:28

Jeff Zehnder

Exchanging printed copies of the MOU at the signing. From left: Keith Molenaar, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science; Marie-Hélène Baroux, director general of ISAE-SUPAERO; and Jill Blondin, vice chancellor for global affairs.

Cap sur de nouveaux horizons !

Aerospace at the ��ñ�� is expanding its ties with France.

��ñ�� leadership met July 15, 2026 with a visiting delegation from the Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE-SUPAERO), a leading French institution for aerospace engineering education and research, to sign a formal memorandum of understanding between the two institutions.

“The synergies between our two institutions are extensive,” said John Evans, chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. “This MOU builds on an already active relationship and creates a framework to expand opportunities in both research and education.”

Located in Toulouse, France, ISAE-SUPAERO was founded as the world’s first dedicated aeronautical school, opening its doors in 1909. Over the ensuing century, it expanded its education and research activities into space and today works across the breadth of aerospace engineering. It currently has about 130 permanent faculty and research personnel and enrolls about 2,000 students.

The visiting delegation included Marie-Hélène Baroux, director general of ISAE-SUPAERO, and Florence Puech, deputy head of international relations. They were joined during the visit by Stéphanie Lizy-Destrez, a professor of space systems engineering at ISAE-SUPAERO who spent the past six months at ��ñ�� as a Byram Distinguished Visiting Professor in Smead Aerospace.

Evans is hopeful the partnership will expand opportunities for visiting faculty and students studying abroad on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In the past, study abroad has been challenging for ��ñ�� aerospace students as overseas courses do not easily transfer. The structure of ISAE-SUPAERO’s engineering curriculum offers a particularly strong fit for ��ñ�� aerospace students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The agreement builds on an ongoing relationship between the institutions, including short- and longer-term visits by faculty and students in both Toulouse and Boulder. Lizy-Destrez’s recent appointment provided another example of that collaboration, bringing her expertise in space systems engineering, astrodynamics, and human and robotic space exploration to ��ñ�� students and faculty.

As part of the visit, the French delegation met with Chancellor Justin Schwartz, toured the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) and the Aerospace Building, and met with students and faculty.

Signing the MOU for ��ñ�� was Keith Molenaar, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, and Jill Blondin, vice chancellor for global affairs.

Aerospace at the ��ñ�� is expanding its ties with France. ��ñ�� leadership met July 15, 2026 with a visiting delegation from the...

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From Boulder to Antarctica: LIDAR exploration of atmospheric metal layers linking the atmosphere with space

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:09:38 +0000

From Boulder to Antarctica: LIDAR exploration of atmospheric metal layers linking the atmosphere with space Jeff Zehnder Mon, 06/29/2026 - 09:09

In 2021, a team led by CIRES Fellow Xinzhao Chu discovered layers of sodium and other metals appear with surprising regularity — twice a day at dusk and just before dawn — high in the atmosphere above Boulder, Colorado.

These layers, called Thermosphere-Ionosphere sodium (TINa) layers, contain metals from meteoroids and dust that are vaporized as they enter Earth’s atmosphere. Chu and her colleagues showed the layers co-occur with high-atmospheric tidal winds created by the Sun’s daily cycle. These metal layers are important because they can affect radio communications and GPS navigation.

Now, work led by Yingfei Chen, a member of Chu’s research group and graduate student in CIRES and Aerospace Engineering Sciences at ��ñ��, has identified a transition layer between the TINa layer and a lower, permanent layer of atmospheric metals. Chen and his colleagues are the first to observe this transition layer.

“The transition layer is a bridge connecting two different atmospheric environments,” Chen said. “The atmosphere below this layer is mostly neutral in charge and strongly influenced by waves and tides. Above the transition layer is the thermosphere-ionosphere region, where charged particles become increasingly important. Observing this transition region helps us understand how the neutral atmosphere and the charged ionosphere are coupled.”

A new discovery high in the atmosphere

To make the discovery, the team analyzed seven years of data from a powerful lidar system that uses lasers to measure how much of and how high a metal is in the atmosphere. Chu’s group collected the data in Boulder, Colorado, from 2011 to 2017.

The study, published last week in Geophysical Research Letters, identified a previously unknown sodium layer and showed that the layer sinks down through the atmosphere, from 120 to 95 kilometers, each night. They also found that this transition layer descends faster in summer months than in winter months.

Their results suggest tidal winds, driven by daily solar heating of Earth’s atmosphere, help form the sodium transition layer by moving and concentrating sodium ions at specific altitudes. These ions can then be converted into neutral sodium atoms through recombination with electrons, making the layer detectable by lidar.

“The transition layer provides direct observational evidence that the main meteoric sodium layer and the higher TINa layer are connected through a dynamically active region,” Chen said. “This gives us a new tracer for studying coupling across the ionosphere, thermosphere, and mesosphere.”

Lidar research in Antarctica

While the Boulder discovery came from years of lidar observations in Colorado, Chen was analyzing data, writing papers, and working on his PhD from one of the most remote research sites on Earth: McMurdo Station in Antarctica. This was where Chu’s group first discovered the thermosphere metal layers in 2011.

Yingfei Chen at McMurdo Station in Antarctica.

Courtesy of Yingfei Chen/CIRES

From late February to the end of October 2024— and through the dark, harsh Antarctic winter — Chen ran two powerful lidar instruments at the Arrival Heights Observatory, measuring sodium and iron in the upper atmosphere. The work was a part of the groundbreaking McMurdo lidar observational campaign, which Chu led for 16 years and was funded by the United States Antarctic Program in collaboration with Antarctica New Zealand.

It was Chen’s third time in Antarctica since 2022 and his longest and most grueling trip yet.

Just before Chen started his winter operation in 2024, Chu led critical refurbishments and upgrades to the lidar systems. Chen supported those efforts, which made his over-winter possible. When Chu and the rest of the team left, they continued to provide support and feedback from Boulder.

Yingfei Chen and Xinzhao Chu working on the lidar systems in the lab.

Courtesy of Xinzhao Chu/CIRES

“Managing two lidar systems here in Boulder is already very difficult,” Chen said. “But when you are doing a similar thing in Antarctica in this Arrival Heights Observatory, far away from many people, it's a different story.”

Chen excelled in conditions many could not. He battled heavy snow and blustery winds just to make it to the lab, which was a mile away from McMurdo. Once he was there, he managed two complex lidar systems, troubleshooting and fixing issues in between weather windows so that his team could capture high-quality measurements of iron and sodium high in the atmosphere.

“We always treasure the long dark nights in Antarctica — that’s why we were there,” Chen said. “But to prepare for and catch all the clear nights, you need to make sure your laser systems are in very good performance.”

When things broke, he had to figure out how to fix them with what was on hand.

Chen had support from Adam Peattie, an engineer at McMurdo Station who helped Chen repair a laser’s power supply. Their efforts enabled the collection of an impressive amount of sodium lidar data through winter 2024.

In another instance, when a piece on the iron lidar system failed, there wasn’t a replacement part in the lab. Chen sought help from electricians at McMurdo — together, they searched through storage to see if they could find a suitable replacement part. They found a similar part, and although it wasn’t a perfect replacement, Chen and electrician Ryan Woodhouse were able to get the lidar system back up and running in 2 days.

Adam Peattie in the lab at the Arrival Heights Observatory

Courtesy of Xinzhao Chu/CIRES

"Yingfei's winter-over lidar work was among the very best,” said Chu, who is also a professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. “Not only did his team collect the longest continuous data, but also over 400 hours of data in July 2024 — the highest record of any winter month.”

Working in Antarctica didn’t slow Chen down. During his winter-over, he continued moving his PhD and research forward, analyzing Boulder and McMurdo lidar data, writing manuscripts, responding to reviewers, and advancing the dissertation work that led to this discovery. During his time on the ice, Chen even managed to present a talk via recording for the International Laser Radar Conference in Germany.

Last week, Chen successfully defended his PhD dissertation. He will continue his work as a postdoctoral researcher in Chu’s lab.

“In addition to continuing the science, I’m really excited to be participating in the development and building of brand-new lidar systems,” Chen said.

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Boyd discusses military technology on Curious by Nature

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 15:45:40 +0000

Boyd discusses military technology on Curious by Nature Jeff Zehnder Fri, 06/12/2026 - 09:45

Iain Boyd was interviewed on hypersonic weapons, drones, and artificial intelligence in a new Curious By Nature podcast.

Boyd, a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is an expert on hypersonic vehicles and the director of the ��ñ�� Center for National Security Initiatives.

Iran has used missiles that can travel at hypersonic speeds in the ongoing war. They have also been utilized by Russia in their war against Ukraine. They are uniquely difficult to defend against because of their speed and maneuverability compared to ballistic missiles that have been a part of military arsenals for decades.

"You have less time to react. These vehicles also fly in a part of the atmosphere where nothing else flies. Most armies don't have radars and tracking devices looking at that part of the sky. These new hypersonic vehicles maneuver all the way through their trajectory, which means you have to track them all the time," Boyd said.

Listen to the full podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts

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New flight simulator lab for engineering education

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 18 May 2026 18:39:35 +0000

New flight simulator lab for engineering education Jeff Zehnder Mon, 05/18/2026 - 12:39

Jeff Zehnder

The flight simulators in use, including one with virtual reality goggles. In the background, a discussion with Schaden (seated).

Flying the (virtual) skies

Jackson Clark pushes to full throttle, pulls back on the yoke, and eases into the right rudder pedal as he soars through the sky on a clear day – all without leaving the Aerospace Building.

In a room packed with the latest in flight simulator technology, students are testing out virtual aircraft, not to become licensed pilots, but to study the engineering of aircraft design.

The Undergraduate Flight Simulation Studio is a new facility at the ��ñ��, giving students in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences hands-on aeronautical experience.

“You can teach with a book or on a MatLab plot, but students don’t really understand until they fly it,” said Charles Hoke, an associate teaching professor who led development of the center.

Funded with major support from aerospace engineer, attorney, and passionate ��ñ�� advocate Richard F. Schaden, the facility has seven simulator bays stocked with flight yokes, rudder pedals, and aircraft throttles, complete with the myriad switches, buttons, and lights that comprise actual plane cockpits.

Students also have the option of wearing virtual reality headsets for a 360-degree experience.

“As a pilot, I have flown in flight simulators over the past 35 years to demonstrate compliance with the performance, stability and control of aircraft as they were designed,” said Schaden, who visited the lab for an official unveiling May 7. “Now, here in the lab, students can experiment with design changes to see the effects on the performance, stability and control as modified by them as engineers. This allows the students to experience immediate engineering feedback in ways that may be more precise than they could achieve through wind tunnel tests ”

The lab allows students the chance to test classroom projects and new aircraft concepts. It also offers the ability to show how small changes in existing planes alter their airworthiness.

You can teach with a book or on a MatLab plot, but students don’t really understand until they fly it." - Charles Hoke

“Standard flight simulators are for pilot training,” Hoke said. “That’s not useful for engineers. We want to get into the guts of these things, change the parameters, and learn about aircraft dynamics.”

The lab will be a standard component of sophomore-level courses, impacting over 300 students per year. It will also be available for clubs and other projects.

Students have already been able to use the facility to test plane designs they developed as part of spring semester capstone senior projects. By loading 3D models of their aircraft into the simulator, they were able to collect high fidelity data on drag and aerodynamic performance for analysis

“It has been really cool to see senior project teams come in and use the tools,” said Clark, an aerospace master’s student who helped build the facility. “It’s incredibly immersive and shows the vision for this lab is immediately being applied.”

Hoke also emphasized the simulator’s value as a learning tool.

“When teams design an airframe, they get the chance to fly at Boulder Model Airfield, but you’re lucky to get 1-2 flights. With this simulator, they could fly their designs for hours and hours and get more data for analysis. When I came to ��ñ��, I made it my mission to create a facility like this. It’s very exciting to see it come to life.”

Jackson Clark pushes to full throttle, pulls back on the yoke, and eases into the right rudder pedal as he soars through the sky on a clear day – all without leaving the Aerospace Building...

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