MAE Students Shine at AIAA Region VI Conference

For the first time, CSULB hosted the AIAA Region VI Student Conference from March 19 to 21, 2009. With 82 participants from the entire Western United States (including Arizona State, University of Washington, BYU and Utah State along with California schools such as USC, UCLA and UCI), the conference featured 24 papers arranged in three categories competing for cash prizes. CSULB Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering students shined in all categories:

• Deepak Verma and Kay Gemba won the first place in the graduate student category for their paper titled "Flight Testing of a Prototype LOX/Propylene Upper Stage Engine"
• Andrea Smith and Christopher Bostwick won the second place in the team category for their paper titled "Ceramic Matrix Composite Lined Rocket Engine"
• David Stout won the third place in the undergraduate category for his paper titled "Integrating New and Different COTS Products for CubeSat-Class Satellites"

The conference was marked by an outstanding organization, with many CSULB students volunteering under the leadership of CSULB Student Chapter and Conference Chair Anusha Prabhakar.

Other highlights of the conference included a Distinguished Guest Lecture by Dr. Marc Rayman from JPL who fascinated his audience with a discussion of NASA's Dawn Mission to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres as well as Lt. General George Muellner (ret.), National President of AIAA, who discussed the future of aerospace from a technology standpoint at the conference Awards Banquet.