May 15, 2014
Spring 2014 graduates of the ASE/EM department continue to prove that in UT Aerospace, the sky is no longer the limit. Their leadership qualities, problem solving skills and drive to learn has led these students to work on a variety of impactful projects and research. This extraordinary group of Longhorns, like so many of their classmates, demonstrate that what starts here really does change the world. From working at NASA and SpaceX, to researching helicopter acoustic phenomena and developing hurricane storm surge models, we can't wait to see what they do next.
Ciara Waldron
Ciara Waldron has held five internships over the course of completing her undergraduate degree. Her internships range from working on a missile interceptor at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, to integrating satellites into Falcon 9 rockets at SpaceX launch sites. Waldron is also a member of WIALD (Women in Aerospace for Leadership Development), of which she has been part of various team projects which include launching and recovering a camera on a rocket out of White Sands, writing proposals for NASA's Microgravity Program and designing, building and flying a payload to test the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMUs) on a rocket out of Spaceport America. After graduation, Waldron will move to Los Angeles, California to be a flight safety engineer for SpaceX. She will be working on the Flight Termination Systems (FTS) team for the Falcon 9 rocket.
Max Bremer
Max Bremer, working alongside Professor Clint Dawson has developed novel algorithms for predicting hurricane storm surge models. The data gathered from their research could ultimately provide forecasters with the information they need to better predict rainfall-induced flooding. He is currently completing an undergraduate honors thesis with a focus on this research. Bremer will graduate with two degrees – one in aerospace engineering with special honors and the other in applied mathematics. After graduation, he will work for The German Aerospace Center at the Center for Computer Applications in AeroSpace Science and Engineering. In order to continue his modeling research, Bremer will then study applied mathematics at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and plans to return to UT to complete a PhD at UT's Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.
Denise Salazar
Denise Salazar has taken an active leadership role throughout her entire college career. She was a team member for a WIALD project that challenged the team to build a payload for a 19-foot rocket to capture live feed of the curvature of the Earth. For the last two years, she has served as a Peer Assistance Leader (PAL) with the Women in Engineering Program, serving as a role model to incoming female aerospace engineering majors. Salazar also interned at NASA Ames, where she performed tests in the 80-ft by 120-ft wind tunnel. In the summer of 2013 she received a Texas Space Grant scholarship for the Space Academy at NASA Glenn where she worked on conceptual mission designs to Venus and Titan. This year Salazar was selected as a GEM Fellow, and will be working at The Aerospace Corporation in California. She plans to attend graduate school at Stanford University in the fall of 2014 to continue her research interests in space systems and fluid mechanics.
James Stephenson, an aerospace engineering PhD candidate, is working with Dr. Charles Tinney on helicopter acoustics research. He was the 2011 recipient of the Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Fellowship and the Cockrell School of Engineering's Thrust 2000 Graduate Fellowship. In 2010, Stephenson received an honorable mention from the National Science Foundation Fellowship for his research paper "Extraction of Blade Vortex Interactions from Helicopter Transient Maneuvering Noise." Stephenson's current research focuses on understanding the helicopter acoustic phenomena that occurs when helicopters are maneuvering during flight. He hopes his research will reduce the community annoyance levels from aircraft noise and decrease military detection distances. After graduation Stephenson will be conducting research for the US Army's Aviation Development Directorate on reducing helicopter noise emissions for both civilian and military applications.
