Seven CU-Boulder aerospace engineering students are among 20 top students who were recognized in November 2013 with a new national award honoring tomorrow’s engineering leaders sponsored by Penton’s Aviation Week in partnership with Raytheon.

The “Twenty20s” awards honor the academic achievements and leadership of top engineering, math, science and technology students.

The awards were presented during Aviation Week’s annual Aerospace & Defense Programs Conference in Phoenix.

“I am delighted with the national recognition our outstanding aerospace undergraduate and graduate students are receiving from Aviation Week,” says Penina Axelrad, chair of CU-Boulder’s Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

“All of them bring incredible passion and impressive technical skills to their classwork and to an extensive portfolio of professional and extracurricular activities. Each is on a fast track to making remarkable contributions in fields like space exploration and satellite-based Earth observations.”

The high-profile projects and research portfolios of the seven students cover a wide range of critical issues facing the field of aerospace engineering today.

In addition to their outstanding academic achievements, the students were selected for their leadership and civic involvement outside of the classroom. All are active in professional and student societies and volunteer their time to help others, from encouraging K–12 outreach to volunteering with Habitat for Humanity to mentoring and tutoring fellow classmates.

Award Winners

Doctoral Candidates

▪ Paul Anderson: Working to model geostationary space debris

▪ Jake Gamsky: Helping to design the Dream Chaser commercial spacecraft as an intern at Sierra Nevada Corp. and conducting research on human spaceflight life-support technology

▪ Brad Cheetham: Working closely with the Federal Aviation Administration, developing and co-teaching graduate-level courses on commercial spaceflight

▪ Erin Griggs: Developing a next-generation Global Positioning System receiver for spacecraft

▪ Dan Lubey: Studying space situational awareness to detect and model satellite maneuvers

Undergraduates

Kirstyn Johnson and Mike Lotto (both in their senior year of the undergraduate portion of their concurrent bachelor’s and master’s degrees): Working together as part of a capstone senior project design team that is developing a dust impact monitor capable of measuring the size of tiny cosmic dust particles near the surface of the sun