TULLAHOMA — The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Tennessee Section has honored several students and faculty at the University of Tennessee Space Institute for their research and service achievements, going above and beyond in furthering science and engineering, or in providing educational outreach.
Brian Maicke received the AIAA award for displaying remarkable spirit, teamwork, leadership, support and mentorship. Maicke’s award recognizes his research in the fields of high-speed propulsion and theoretical modeling of aerospace engineering problems. He has also helped to develop two short courses for AIAA covering topics in hybrid rocket analysis and perturbation methods. Maicke was nominated by Professor Joe Majdalani, Arnold Chair of Excellence in Advanced Propulsion.
Ben Klamm, James Rogers, Rayne Sung, Andrew Wilson and Stan Powell received the AIAA Award for their educational outreach in supporting projects at the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC). This group was instrumental in a community effort aimed at promoting interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. The students were nominated by Tom Best, AEDC’s technical director of plans and programs.
Additionally, the Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering (MABE) Department’s Trevor Moeller accepted an award on behalf of the student branch of the Tennessee Section of AIAA for its support of the “Build Your Own Missile” booth at this year’s Polly Crockett festival.
Professor Jay I. Frankel of the MABE Department received the prestigious General H. H. Arnold Award for outstanding personal contributions to the advancement of thermal analysis in harsh rocket environments and high-speed propulsion systems. Professor Frankel is an active researcher in the area of integrating advanced measurement concepts and new sensor technology into a formulation for predicting heat-flux variations and temperatures in harsh environments, such as hypersonic combustors. Professor Frankel will be the technical chair for thermophysics at the 50th Aerospace Science Meeting (ASM) to be held in Nashville in January 2012. He was nominated by Majdalani.
Robert Moore, UTSI’s executive director, commended the students and Professor Frankel as deserving recipients. “To have such an active and supportive student section of AIAA speaks well for the university. I would also like to thank Joe Majdalani for his role in recognizing these individuals.”