COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Dr. Helen Reed, head of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been elected Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Presentation of the new 2008 Honorary Fellows and Fellows will take place at the Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala on Tuesday, 13 May 2008, at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington D.C.

Reed joined the Texas A&M Engineering faculty as aerospace engineering department head in December 2004. She is an accomplished educator both in the traditional role as an outstanding classroom teacher and mentor for her graduate students, and in a non-traditional role as provider of real aerospace projects to promote systems engineering, interdisciplinary teamwork, communication skills, and familiarity with government and industry practices. She is recognized as a national leader in her two areas of research: computational work in boundary-layer transition and flow control; and in micro-/nano-satellite design and responsive software and hardware architectures.

At Texas A&M she has created the AggieSat Lab Student Satellite Program with space launches planned, including an eight-year, four-mission campaign with NASA Johnson Space Center to demonstrate autonomous rendezvous and docking technologies. Another potential mission with the U.S. Air Force aims to demonstrate a stereo-based relative navigation system.

Reed is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Physical Society. She is the chair of the Aerospace Department Chairs' Association, a member of the Transition Study Group, and Texas A&M's representative to USRA. She received the 2007 J. Leland Atwood Award from the American Society of Engineering Education¿s (ASEE) Aerospace Division and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), which is bestowed annually upon an aerospace engineering educator in recognition of outstanding contributions to the profession.

The distinction of Fellow is bestowed by AIAA and its Board of Directors to members who have made notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology in aeronautics or astronautics. Within AIAA, the Fellow distinction is very prestigious and very select as only about 30 Fellows are named each year and typically only about one-third of these are from academia.

For more information, contact

Source: Dr. Helen Reed
reed@aeromail.tamu.edu

News Story 1681, January 16, 2008

Direct page link:
http://engineeringnews.tamu.edu/news/1681

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