Talented engineering students recognised with Vertical Flight Foundation scholarships

The Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety has announced this year’s Ver­ti­cal Flight Foun­da­tion (VFF) schol­ar­ship recip­i­ents, with schol­ar­ships totalling $100,000 being award­ed to 29 of the world’s most tal­ent­ed engi­neer­ing stu­dents inter­est­ed in ver­ti­cal flight.

Each awardee will be recog­nised at the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety’s Grand Awards Ban­quet on Wednes­day 7th Octo­ber. The ban­quet is one of the high­lights of its 76th Annu­al Forum & Tech­nol­o­gy Dis­play, which takes place at the Vir­ginia Beach Con­ven­tion Cen­ter in Vir­ginia Beach, Vir­ginia, from Octo­ber 6th-8th.

“Since 1977, our Ver­ti­cal Flight Foun­da­tion Schol­ar­ships have helped inspire gen­er­a­tions of stu­dents to pur­sue careers in ver­ti­cal flight, with many now hold­ing lead­er­ship posi­tions in indus­try, acad­e­mia and gov­ern­ment,” said VFS Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Mike Hirschberg.

“We have great­ly expand­ed the pro­gram in recent­ly years, tripling the total award giv­en in the past decade and reach­ing more stu­dents than ever.”

Bach­e­lor Degree Recip­i­ents

• Joseph Michael Ayd, III, Embry-Rid­dle Aero­nau­ti­cal Uni­ver­si­ty: , hon­our­ing the for­mer senior man­ag­er of dynam­ics tech­nol­o­gy and tech­ni­cal fel­low of The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny
• Grant Erick­son, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty: Geoff Byham Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing an archi­tect of advanced rotor aero­dy­nam­ics at West­land Heli­copters, Yeovil, Eng­land (now Leonar­do Heli­copters)
• Rachel Har­vey, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: , which hon­ours the mem­o­ry of a pio­neer­ing heli­copter engi­neer with a life­long com­mit­ment to edu­cat­ing the rotor­craft com­mu­ni­ty
• James William Krasa, II, Old Domin­ion Uni­ver­si­ty: John Zuk Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the NASA engi­neer who was a cham­pi­on of civ­il tiltro­tor tech­nol­o­gy and appli­ca­tions
• Grant McCur­dy, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty: Bob Lynn Schol­ar­ship, which hon­ours the mem­o­ry of the for­mer Bell Heli­copter exec­u­tive and VFS leader par excel­lence
• Ryan Mur­phy, Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty: Glid­den S. Doman Schol­ar­ship, named for one of the six orig­i­nal Amer­i­can heli­copter pio­neers
• Yash­vard­han Tomar, Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy: Charles C. Craw­ford Schol­ar­ship, named in mem­o­ry of the for­mer Army Avi­a­tion devel­op­ment leader, GTRI researcher and past VFS Board Chair
• Qing­wen Wei, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: Robert P. Ernst Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the for­mer US Navy chief engi­neer for unmanned tac­ti­cal rotor­craft

Mas­ter Degree Recip­i­ents

• Jan-Arun Faust, Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich: San­ti­no “Tino” Pan­cot­ti Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the for­mer tech­ni­cal lead for Agus­ta and AgustaWest­land (now Leonar­do Heli­copters)
• Richard Healy, Rens­se­laer Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute: Robert Head Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the engi­neer­ing pio­neer from McDonnell/Hughes/McDonnell/Douglas/Boeing
• *Chloe John­son, Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin: Bell Tex­tron Schol­ar­ship, pro­vid­ed by a gen­er­ous VFF endow­ment from the com­pa­ny
• Marek Lukasiewicz, War­saw Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy: Marat Tishchenko Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the for­mer head of the Mil Moscow Heli­copter Plant, and pro­fes­sor at Moscow Avi­a­tion Insti­tute and Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land
• Ravi Lum­ba, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: Dean Cari­co Schol­ar­ship, named for the US Navy rotary-wing ship suit­abil­i­ty engi­neer
• Amy Morin, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: , named for a pre­em­i­nent aero­me­chan­ics engi­neer and beloved pro­fes­sor who inspired gen­er­a­tions
• Farid Sae­mi: Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty:, which recog­nis­es more than 50 years of tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions to Bell Heli­copter by Mr. Wood
• Daniel Weits­man, The Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty: Frank N. Piasec­ki Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the inven­tor of the tan­dem rotor heli­copter

Doc­tor­ate Degree Recip­i­ents

• Belen Bow­man, The Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty: Barnes McCormick Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing Penn State’s ven­er­a­ble Boe­ing Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus
• *Jason Cor­nelius, The Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty (3‑time recip­i­ent): Hal Andrews Schol­ar­ship, which remem­bers a pre­em­i­nent Navy avi­a­tion engi­neer, advi­sor and his­to­ri­an
• Miran­da Costeno­ble, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: Eugene K. Lib­er­a­tore Schol­ar­ship, which hon­ours the mem­o­ry of a pio­neer­ing heli­copter engi­neer, author and his­to­ri­an
• Emi­ly Fisler, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land:, hon­our­ing a pio­neer in the heli­copter field at NACA/NASA and founder of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land rotor­craft cen­ter
• Avani Gup­ta, Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy (2‑time recip­i­ent): Wel Chong (Ben) Sim Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the US Army acoustics research sci­en­tist
• Bochan Lee, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty (2‑time recip­i­ent): Bar­ry J. Bas­kett Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the mem­o­ry of a career US Army engi­neer who led Avi­a­tion Engi­neer­ing, and lat­er man­aged the Avi­a­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Base Pro­gram
• Charis Lin, The Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty: John J. Schnei­der Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the mem­o­ry of a pre­em­i­nent VTOL air­craft design­er and his­to­ri­an
• Michael McK­ay, Rens­se­laer Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute (2‑time recip­i­ent): Jeff Pino Schol­ar­ship, named for the retired Mas­ter US Army Avi­a­tor, for­mer Bell Heli­copter exec­u­tive and retired Siko­rsky Air­craft CEO
• Ste­fan Platzer, Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich: Hen­rich Focke Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the cre­ator of the world’s first prac­ti­cal heli­copter
• Abhishek Shas­try, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land (2‑time recip­i­ent): Dr. Joseph Hoeg Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the US Navy rotor­craft struc­tures and test engi­neer who retired as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Naval Air War­fare Cen­ter Air­craft Divi­sion, Patux­ent Riv­er
• Tyler Sinotte, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land (2‑time recip­i­ent): Dr. Richard M. Carl­son Schol­ar­ship, for­mer Hiller and Lock­heed engi­neer who became the chief of the Army’s Advanced Sys­tems Research and Analy­sis Office at Ames Research Cen­ter
• Austin Thai, Boston Uni­ver­si­ty (2‑time recip­i­ent): Michael P. Scul­ly Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the US Army Senior Research Engi­neer Emer­i­tus and VFS Fel­low
• Christo­pher Thur­man, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: Joseph P. Crib­bins Schol­ar­ship, hon­our­ing the indi­vid­ual who had per­haps the most influ­ence and long-term impact on US Army Avi­a­tion logis­tics in the 20th cen­tu­ry

Each of the Bach­e­lor schol­ar­ships includes a cash award of $2,800; the Mas­ters stu­dents receive $3,500 each and Doc­tor­ate schol­ar­ship win­ners each receive $3,700.

In addi­tion, the top grad­u­ate can­di­date (marked above with an aster­isk) has received spe­cial recog­ni­tion. Ms John­son of Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas in Austin will receive a total of $5,000 for the Bell Ver­ti­cal Flight Schol­ar­ship. Mr Cor­nelius of Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty is a three-time VFF recip­i­ent, hav­ing been award­ed a schol­ar­ship as BS and Mas­ter stu­dent and now PhD.

The Ver­ti­cal Flight Foun­da­tion was estab­lished in 1967 as the phil­an­thropic arm of the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety. Since 1977, the mer­it-based schol­ar­ship pro­gram has been a great suc­cess sto­ry: 590 schol­ar­ships have been award­ed since that time.

The pro­gramme has been great­ly expand­ed in recent years, with the num­ber of recip­i­ents dou­bling in the last decade, and the total annu­al schol­ar­ship dis­burse­ment tripling. Since 2012 alone, more than 200 VFF schol­ar­ships totalling more than $650,000 have been award­ed.