Michigan Aerospace Stands Out at the 2025 AIAA SciTech Conference

Last week, Michigan Aerospace faculty members and students gathered at the annual American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Science and Technology (SciTech) Forum and Exposition in Orlando, Florida. Standing as the world’s largest event for aerospace research, development and technology, the event housed an opportunity to showcase breakthroughs in science, technology and next-generation capabilities. Together researchers, engineers, students, industry leaders and government innovators gather to reflect and network, all with the same goal: to “Energize the Future” of aerospace and aviation. 

This year, numerous prestigious awards were presented to our Michigan Aerospace Department community members at the conference. These recognitions showcase their innovative research, commitment to the industry and excellence in various aspects of aerospace engineering. These awards included:

• The 2025 AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight Award, awarded to Professor Ilya Kolmanovsky, the Pierre T. Kabamba Collegiate Professor of Aerospace Engineering, for significant contributions to advances in theory and methods enabling the development of reference governors and model predictive control algorithms enforcing safety constraints in aerospace systems.

• The 2024 AIAA Electrified Aircraft Technology Symposium Best Paper, awarded to Maxfield Arnson and Gokcin Cinar, University of Michigan; Elias Waddington, Phillip J. Ansell, and Matthew A. Clarke, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Reynard de Vries, Delft University of Technology; Francesco Salucci and Nirmit Prabhakar, Argonne National Laboratory; Jonathan Gladin, Georgia Institute of Technology; Mingxuan Shi, The Boeing Company; Edward Lovelace, Ampaire; and Peter de Bock, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)

• The 2024 AIAA Electrified Aircraft Technology Symposium Best Student Paper, awarded to Yi-Chih Wang and Gokcin Cinar, University of Michigan

• The 2025 AIAA Meshing Visualization and Computational Environments Best Student Paper, awarded to Alexander W.C. Coppeans, Krzysztof J. Fidkowski, Joaquim R.R.A. Martins

In addition to these awards, students and faculty members participated in lectures, presentations, and special programs as an opportunity to showcase the research and work they have been pursuing over the past year. The forum offered an opportunity for students, faculty and a large group of alumni to participate and listen to the work currently being done toward the industry’s future. 

Likewise, the annual University of Michigan Department of Aerospace Engineering AIAA Reception event allowed those in attendance to reconnect, network and share their excitement about the work being done in the field. Together, the Michigan Aerospace community spent the week-long event soaking up all of the innovative new technologies, networking with other incredible minds, and participating in technical presentations and sessions. We are honored to have such an esteemed roster of colleges, students and alumni in attendance and look forward to next year’s SciTech event. 

See the full list of Michigan Aerospace participation at the 2025 AIAA SciTech Forum here.