DEPARTMENT HIGHLIGHTS
A pair of honors for Eskandarian
Azim Eskandarian and his past post-doc , Yuan Lin , won the Vincent Bendix Automotive Electronics Engineering Award of the Society of Automotive Engineers , for the 2020 best paper in the SAE International Journal of Connected and Automated Vehicles .
Eskandrian was also elected to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ( IEEE ) Board of Governors for the Intelligent Transport Society ( ITS ) for 2022 . The board is elected from society members to manage the Society ’ s resources , represent the Society within IEEE and arrange for technical publications , conferences and other benefits to the members . Governors serve for three years .
Graduate student is awarded NASA grant
Amy Quartaro , a graduate student pursuing a master ’ s degree in mechanical engineering , has been awarded a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity grant . Quartaro is the third student from Virginia Tech to receive this award since its creation .
Quartaro conducts research in the Field and Space Experimental Robotics ( FASER ) Lab , working with Assistant Professor and primary investigator Erik Komendera . She first met Komendera when she entered NASA ’ s internship program in 2016 at the Langley Research Center where he was a research aerospace engineer .
“ I ’ ve known for a very long time that I wanted to get involved with NASA , that I wanted to get involved with space robots in some way ,” said Quartaro . “ Finding a problem that was important to the development of space technologies and getting to work on it is what caused me to apply for this grant . It ’ s great to have validation that I found a difficult problem that needs to be solved , that can actively and immediately contribute to space technologies .”
2021 is the tenth consecutive year that NASA ’ s Space Technology Mission directorate has sought to sponsor U . S . citizen and permanent resident graduate students who show significant potential to contribute to NASA ’ s goal of creating innovative new space technologies for science , exploration and economic future . Awards are made in the form of grants to accredited US universities on behalf of individuals pursuing master ’ s or doctoral degrees , with the faculty advisor serving as the principal investigator .
46 VIRGINIA TECH MECHANICAL ENGINEERING • ANNUAL REPORT 2020-2021