letter from the
chair
Dear Friends, Despite the challenges made by the pandemic, the UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering has much to be proud of. As we gradually learned to live, effectively work and excel with restricted access to research and teaching labs, classrooms and faceto-face interactions, our students and faculty continued to make great achievements. On multiple levels, they’ve demonstrated the potential impact that they have on local and national industries. We are also honored to have an amazing group of graduate students. They’ve conducted research at the highest level with numerous publications in top scientific journals. All of this couldn’t be possible without our dedicated staff members who supported and enabled us to continue these activities. The fifth edition of Momentum features several highlights from this past year. In 2020, three faculty members in MAE received the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award. This year, two more were added to this impressive list: Assistant Professors Robert Steward
and Samik Bhattacharya. To put things in perspective, with about 100 departments in the university, only 12 faculty members received the award in 2020 and only five received it this past year. As you flip through the pages of this magazine, you will be able to read the stories of these two assistant professors as well as the accomplishments of several other faculty members. You will also learn about the achievements of our students, such as the team that competed in the AIAA Design Build Fly competition and placed first in the nation and second in the world. They also won first place for the department in the college’s Senior Design Showcase. Another Senior Design Team created a modified ride-on car for a local boy as part of the Go Baby Go! program, which creates modified cars for children with mobility issues. You’ll read about the out-of-thisworld achievements of aerospace engineering student Jillian Gloria, pictured on the cover, who dreams of becoming an astronaut. The department also has an impressive history mentoring and recruiting students who have received prestigious fellowships from NSF,
NASA, the Department of Defense, and more. This year isn’t different, as you will see when you turn the page. As many of you might be aware, MAE faculty members have been extremely busy working with, and fostering collaborations with many local, national and international industry partners. Our Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research, established more than a decade ago by Professor Jayanta Kapat, is an incredible success story that is chronicled on page eight. I’m optimistic that this coming year will be even better than the last one, and that together we will continue to make this university a premier institute of the highest caliber in research and education. I hope that you will enjoy reading this magazine. I wish you a very rewarding and exciting year — but more importantly — a safe and healthy one. Sincerely, Yoav Peles Chair, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering University of Central Florida
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