2024 AEROCONTACT Magazine

Celebrating 75 years of aerospace engineering excellence at the University of Maryland, this issue of AeroContact highlights the department’s legacy of innovation, commitment to pioneering advancements, and inspiring the next generation of aerospace innovators.

From its founding in 1949 to its evolution into a leader in aerospace innovation, highlights include the creation of the Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center, breakthroughs in hypersonics research to record-breaking achievements like the Gamera human-powered helicopter. This issue also shines a spotlight on alumna and NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps (Ph.D. ’00), UMD’s award-winning Terrapin Rocket Team, and the launch of the Advanced Space Science and Technology Research at UMD (ASTRA) center, showcasing a commitment to pioneering advancements in aerospace engineering and inspiring the next generation of innovators.

2023 AEROCONTACT Magazine

Our species is fascinated by space for multiple reasons. We aspire to expand outwards, potentially building extraterrestrial habitats. We crave the insights that we can gain about the nature of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe as a whole, including possible clues about the origins of life here on Earth, and UMD researchers are at the forefront in all of these aspects of human engagement with space.

2022 AEROCONTACT Magazine

In this issue of AeroContact, we take an in-depth look at UMD’s ongoing role in supporting one of the great space exploration stories of our time: the successful achievement of powered flight on a planet other than Earth. When the Ingenuity helicopter lifted off in 2019, it provided the ultimate “proof of concept” for a design first put forward by UMD students nearly two decades previously. Key figures involved in the earlier design— notably, former graduate student and current UMD aerospace engineering professor Anubhav Datta—would then go on to assist NASA and its partners as they developed the craft that became known as Ingenuity.

2021 AEROCONTACT Magazine

Many variables come together to produce a successful academic program, including faculty, resources, partnerships with industry, location, and the ability to recruit high-caliber students. To these we would add another variable: support from active alumni with a commitment to further strengthening the department where they earned their degrees. In this issue of AeroContact, we highlight the contributions of one such alum, Kerry Wisnosky.