Amy Sprague
June 24, 2024
We are proud to announce the recipients of our annual A&A Student Excellence Awards. These honors recognize outstanding students who have demonstrated remarkable achievements in research, teaching, and service over the past year.
The award winners have made exceptional contributions that embody our department's highest values and commitment to excellence. What follows are excerpts highlighting the incredible accomplishments from the award recipients' nominations.
Research Excellence
These honors recognize distinguished achievements and sustained exceptional progress in research activities by students. Selection criteria include overall research quality, significance of the work, and publications/presentations.
Jasper Geldenbott
Undergraduate Research Excellence
Jasper has truly risen as a research superstar, exemplifying excellence across all activities. In just the past year, his high-caliber work earned acceptance to a flagship IEEE robotics conference and a prestigious UW Emerging Scholar Award. As a Space Grant awardee, Jasper is extending his cutting-edge research on human-in-the-loop robotics experimentation and preparing it for journal publication. Beyond his own scholarship, he selflessly mentors other students and enthusiastically volunteers for outreach.
Matthew Nuss
Master's Research Excellence
Matthew’s masters thesis represents a monumental achievement in optimizing composite cryogenic tank design for hydrogen storage. Despite working full-time to support himself financially, Matthew's outstanding work simultaneously enhances manufacturing efficiency and end performance. His novel approach reduces manufacturing costs by 10% - a tremendous improvement with multi-million-dollar implications. Matthew's designs will be showcased through fabrication leveraging state-of-the-art robotics.
Mohammad Al-Jarrah
Doctoral Research Excellence
Mohammad has vastly exceeded expectations through his trailblazing doctoral research developing variational optimal transport methods for aerospace uncertainty quantification. His remarkable work spans theoretical analysis to implementing novel algorithms, garnering prestigious publication acceptances at CDC and ACC - the top controls conferences. Mohammad's research acumen, integrity, interdisciplinary collaboration skills, and team leadership abilities make him truly exemplary.
Teaching Excellence Awards
These honors recognize students' sustained commitment to and distinguished achievement in classroom teaching. Selection criteria include the ability to effectively communicate material, facilitate students' progress toward independent problem-solving, use of inclusive practices supporting all students, and development of innovative teaching tools and techniques.
Colin Baxter
Colin demonstrated an unwavering commitment to inclusive, impactful teaching. As a TA for multiple courses and lab instructor, Colin has an intuitive ability to clearly communicate complex concepts in ways that promote independent problem-solving skills. Colin goes above and beyond, dedicating extra time to ensure all students feel supported and gain hands-on mastery. His innovative, student-centered approaches embody the highest levels of teaching excellence.
Oliver Sheridan
Oliver has distinguished himself through exceptional commitment to teaching. He actively enhances lectures by providing insightful additional perspectives to deepen student understanding. Behind the scenes, Oliver produces masterful homework solution guides and maintains exemplary responsiveness coordinating with the teaching team.
Service Excellence Awards
These honors celebrate sustained commitment to service within the department and pioneering our public outreach mission through activities advancing inclusion, education, leadership, and mentorship.
Jevoni Sykes
Undergraduate Service Excellence
Jevoni’s exceptional leadership as Chief Engineer for the UW Design Build Fly team culminated in a coveted podium finish at the prestigious AIAA competition. He channeled a seamless blend of professionalism and mentorship to unite and inspire the 80-member team to reach new heights. His tenure exemplified service through cultivating an inclusive community while preparing the next generation of aerospace leaders.
Landon Bevier
Graduate Service Excellence
Landon has made profound and lasting service impacts across the department, university, and community. His trailblazing service spanned faculty search committees providing key student perspectives, educational outreach guiding high-altitude balloon teams, dedicated undergraduate mentorship, and developing awe-inspiring interactive research demos. Landon's contagious passion, driven ambassadorship, and unparalleled commitment to furthering our public service mission make him a truly deserving recipient of this prestigious award.