Letter from the Chair

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Over the past academic year, we have eased out of pandemic mode and returned to a more normal way of teaching, learning and living. However, our department achievements remain high — higher in fact, than they were before the pandemic.

This was a record year for student awards: Two teams brought home five of the top prizes at the NASA MINDS competition and one team placed third in the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. We also saw a group of students make it to the finals of the NASA RASC-AL competition for the first time in UCF history, and we can now boast our first Matthew Isakowitz fellow, pictured on our cover. In addition to these accolades, graduate student Perla Latorre-Suarez was included on Aviation Week Network’s prestigious list of 20 Twenties this year.

Our faculty have also successfully reached for the stars. Two of our faculty are part of the first team of researchers at UCF to receive funding from the U.S. Space Force, which signed a partnership agreement with our university earlier this year. We hope this agreement will bring about more opportunities for collaboration with both our faculty and our students.

Two of our faculty members are also leading a NASA project worth $10 million that could lead to the development of jet engines that produce zero carbon emissions. Their team is comprised of experts from across the U.S., in both academia and industry.

This past year, UCF also set a record in research funding, as did the department. For the first time, we surpassed $10 million while the university garnered more than $212 million in sponsored research projects. You can read about some of the top-funded projects within the department, as well as other stellar achievements of our faculty, students and alumni in the following pages.

As always, I hope you enjoy this issue of Momentum, and I encourage you to engage with us on social media @ucfmae.

Go Knights! Charge On!

Sincerely, Yoav Peles Chair,

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

University of Central Florida