2019 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

Winner:
Bennett Hazelgrove (Highest GPA in mechanical engineering, RVDT Leadership)
John Hochschild (Highest GPA in aerospace engineering, aerodynamics research with Dr. Spedding)

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: 
Ana Gabrielian, John Hochschild, Ethan Strijbosch, Ramiro Mendoza: Alternative Wing Loading Distribution to Minimize Induced Drag

The Laufer Prize for Outstanding Achievement

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: 
Luke Stevens, Joshua Ancheta, Sierra Dean, Darian Wood: Surface-Water-Air-Propulsion system (SWAP)

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.

Winner: 
Bennett Hazlegrove, Ryan Fox, Donghoon Kim, Ross Boothroyd: Investigating Helicopter Brownout Mitigation through Blade Tip Airflow

AME Student Achievement Award for Outstanding Ingenuity and Performance

These awards are given to the students in the AME Senior Projects Laboratory who have shown outstanding ingenuity and performance in the design, construction, and testing of their senior project.

Winners: 
Alejandro Gonzalez, Mark Brizzolara, Nicole Nelson, Sutton Clancy: Impedance Pumping in Parallel with a Compliant Aorta as a Mechanism for Increased Circulation

Clifford Lester, Cole Pernitsky, Aarya Suryavanshi, Pooja Moolchandani: Propulsion Analysis of a Flapping Fin: The Effects of Curvature Variations