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Texas A&M professor wins AIAA national advising award
Texas A&M professor wins AIAA national advising award
COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Dr. John Valasek, associate professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University, has been selected to receive the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 2005 National Faculty Advisor Award.
Valasek will receive his award at the 2005 awards luncheon at the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting Jan. 11.
"I feel very honored to receive this award, in particular because it was organized and generated by the AIAA student branch officers. They are an outstanding group of people who are dedicated to the aerospace engineering department and promoting the profession. I feel blessed just to have the privilege to work with them," Valasek said.
A faculty member since 1997, Valasek is director of the Flight Simulation Laboratory at Texas A&M and advises the student chapters of the AIAA and Sigma Gamma Tau. Before coming to Texas A&M, he was a flight control engineer for the aircraft division of the Northrop Corporation in Hawthorne, Calif. He currently co-teaches a professional short course on digital flight control system analysis and design for the University of Kansas's Division of Continuing Education.
Valasek's research interests are in the areas of morphing aircraft and spacecraft; intelligent autonomous control of unmanned aerial vehicles; vision-based navigation and control; and automated air traffic control and guidance.
Valasek is a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). He is also the national vice president of Sigma Gamma Tau, the national honor society in aerospace engineering.
Valasek's honors include winning the 2004 Texas A&M Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award; Best Paper in Session at the AIAA 1st Intelligent Systems Conference; Best Paper in Session at the SAE Guidance and Control Conference; and the McElmurry Outstanding Teaching Award from the Texas A&M Aerospace Engineering Department, all in 2004. He won the B.P. Amoco Teaching Excellence Award from the Dwight Look College of Engineering in 2001 and 2003.
Valasek holds a bachelor's degree from California State Polytechnic University-Pomona and a master's degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas, all in aerospace engineering.
For more information, contact
Source: Dr. John Valasek
valasek@aero.tamu.edu
Reporter: Bonnie L. Shortner
teeswriter1@tamu.edu
News Story 1077,
Direct page link:
http://tees.tamu.edu/news/1077
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