2026 Awards

Eyre Associates Award for Outstanding Achievement

The Eyre Associates award recognized an aerospace or mechanical engineering student who has demonstrated outstanding academic excellence throughout their undergraduate academic career. This award honors the Eyre Associates’ contributions over many years to the support and development of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

Winners:

Nicholas Lototsky (AE)
Shane Roberts (ME)

The Tony Maxworthy Award

Professor Tony Maxworthey was a leading light in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering from his arrival in 1967 to his passing in 2013. He was a Distinguished University Professor and recipient of numerous awards in his illustrious life, but he always drew considerable joy and satisfaction from teaching our undergraduate project labs. His research was always characterized by an elegance and incisiveness where any given experiment often proved to be the defining study of its time. This award is therefore given to the student work that most closely exemplifies this combination of experimental and analytical elegance for which “TMax” was famous.

Winners: 

Lucas Dudley
Jingwen Hu
Lilian Le
Char Zhang

Group project: Characterization of Viscous Dampers through the Development of a Damper Dynamometer

The Laufer Prize for Outstanding Achievement

John Laufer was chairman for 19 years. He was an internationally known experimentalist in fluid mechanics and had an illustrious career at Cal Tech, NBS, and JPL in addition to USC. He was also instrumental in developing the Senior Experimental Projects Laboratory course (AME 441). This award was established in his honor to recognize the student(s) with the most outstanding project in the AME 441 course.

Winners:

JC Garcia
Nathan Huynh
Joaquin Phillips
Ziyan Sultan

Group project: Enhanced Modeling of Water Electrolysis Propulsion

The Bleeker Award for Superb Craftsmanship

Al Bleeker was an enthusiastic, dedicated supporter of undergraduate experimental studies. As a friend, technician, and teacher, Al counseled over two generations of laboratory students. This award for excellence and imagination in the design and construction of experiments during the senior year course is presented as a tribute to Al’s contributions.

Winners: 

Nathan Chun
Josiah Chakra
Lincoln Lam
Bill Ouyang

Group: Control and Hardware Optimization for Cable-Driven Robot Arm Longevity

Gary Norris Memorial Award

Provided by the Gary Norris Memorial Foundation, established in memory of Garrett 'Gary' Norris and recognizing outstanding undergraduates with tuition scholarships.

Winner:

Nikoloz Adeishvili