This year’s recipients of the Vertical Flight Foundation scholarships announced, $100,000 in total awarded

Schol­ar­ships total­ing $100,000 have been award­ed to 27 of the world’s most tal­ent­ed engi­neer­ing stu­dents inter­est­ed in ver­ti­cal flight, who are this year’s Ver­ti­cal Flight Foun­da­tion (VFF) recip­i­ents.

The awardees will be recog­nised at the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety’s Grand Awards Cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day, May 5th, which is one of the high­lights of its 77th Annu­al Forum & Tech­nol­o­gy Dis­play. This event will take place vir­tu­al­ly from May 10th to 14th.

Mike Hirschberg, Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, said: “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, with more 600 schol­ar­ships award­ed to date.

“Through the incred­i­ble gen­eros­i­ty of our mem­bers, we have been able to great­ly expand the pro­gram in recent years. Over the past decade, we have now award­ed 238 schol­ar­ships worth more than $750,000.” 

Bach­e­lor Degree Recip­i­ents

• Leilani Fri­day, Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty: Frank N. Piasec­ki Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the inven­tor of the tan­dem rotor heli­copter
• Shub­hank Gyawali, Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty: Friedrich Straub Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the for­mer senior man­ag­er of dynam­ics tech­nol­o­gy and tech­ni­cal fel­low of The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny
• Joseph Kiley Heimerl, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty: Michael J. Rutkows­ki Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the NASA/US Army aero­me­chan­ics engi­neer and leader
• Christo­pher John­son, Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty: Joseph P. Crib­bins Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the indi­vid­ual who had per­haps the most influ­ence and long-term impact on US Army Avi­a­tion logis­tics in the 20th cen­tu­ry
• Melanie A. Peavy, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty: Tom Wood Hon­orary Schol­ar­ship, which rec­og­nizes more than 50 years of tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions to Bell by Mr. Wood

Mas­ter Degree Recip­i­ents

• Matthew Shane Asper, Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin: Bob Lynn Schol­ar­ship, which hon­ors the mem­o­ry of the for­mer Bell exec­u­tive and VFS leader par excel­lence
• Matthew Bahr, Rens­se­laer Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute: Robert Head Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the engi­neer­ing pio­neer from McDonnell/Hughes/McDonnell Douglas/Boeing
• Hunter Den­ton, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty: Bar­ry J. Bas­kett Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the mem­o­ry of a career US Army engi­neer who led Avi­a­tion Engi­neer­ing, and lat­er man­aged the Avi­a­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Base Pro­gram
• Nicholas Rehm (two-time recip­i­ent), Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: John J. “Jack” Fet­sko Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the heli­copter oper­a­tions pio­neer and leader
• Peter Ryseck (two-time recip­i­ent), Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: , hon­or­ing a pio­neer in the heli­copter field at NACA/NASA and founder of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land rotor­craft cen­ter
• Bren­dan Smith, Rens­se­laer Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute: James Howlett Schol­ar­ship, named for the Siko­rsky han­dling qual­i­ties and flight dynam­ics sim­u­la­tion leader and vision­ary
• James Suther­land, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: Hal Andrews Schol­ar­ship, which remem­bers a pre­em­i­nent Navy avi­a­tion engi­neer, advi­sor and his­to­ri­an
• Lennart Wern­er, Julius-Max­i­m­il­ians-Uni­ver­si­tat Wuezburg (JMUW): San­ti­no “Tino” Pan­cot­ti Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the for­mer tech­ni­cal lead for Agus­ta and AgustaWest­land (now Leonar­do Heli­copters)
• Damaris Rene Zachos, Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty*: Bell Schol­ar­ship, pro­vid­ed by a gen­er­ous VFF endow­ment from the com­pa­ny and award­ed to the top over­all scor­ing VFF recip­i­ent

Doc­tor­ate Degree Recip­i­ents

• Jared Carnes, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ten­nessee, Knoxville: John J. Schnei­der Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the mem­o­ry of a pre­em­i­nent VTOL air­craft design­er and his­to­ri­an
• Ruthvik Chan­drasekaran, 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
• Cheng Chi, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land:, which hon­ors the mem­o­ry of a pio­neer­ing heli­copter engi­neer with a life­long com­mit­ment to edu­cat­ing the rotor­craft com­mu­ni­ty
• Airin Dut­ta, Rens­se­laer Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute: Ani­ta Abrego Schol­ar­ship, which hon­ors the mem­o­ry of the NASA rotor­craft aero­me­chan­ics engi­neer
• Sicheng (Kevin) Li, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis: Evan Sam­pat­a­cos Schol­ar­ship, remem­ber­ing the for­mer McDon­nell Douglas/Boeing engi­neer
• Felix Loessle, Leib­niz Uni­ver­si­ty Han­nover: Howard C. “Pat” Cur­tiss, Jr. Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the pio­neer­ing Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty rotor­craft aero­me­chan­ics researcher and edu­ca­tor
• Ravi Lum­ba (two-time recip­i­ent), Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: M.A. “Tony” McVeigh Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the mem­o­ry of the Boe­ing advanced rotor­craft design­er and men­tor
• Joseph Robin­son, Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy: Dr. Wel Chong (Ben) Sim Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the US Army acoustics research sci­en­tist
• Farid Sae­mi, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty: Dr. John Zuk Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the NASA engi­neer who was a cham­pi­on of civ­il tiltro­tor tech­nol­o­gy and appli­ca­tions
• Jared Saga­ga, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis: 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
• Fred­er­ick Tsai (two-time recip­i­ent), Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land: John W. Sobczak Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing the mem­o­ry of the US Army applied avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy engi­neer
• Raja Akif Raja Zahirudin, Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty: Prof. Barnes McCormick Schol­ar­ship, hon­or­ing Penn State’s ven­er­a­ble Boe­ing Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus
• Pao­la Zanel­la, Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy*:for Cost Aware­ness, giv­en to the most qual­i­fied appli­cant who shows inter­est in improv­ing the afford­abil­i­ty of rotor­craft.

Each of the Bach­e­lor schol­ar­ships includes a cash award of $3,500. the Mas­ters stu­dents receive $3,500 each and Doc­tor­ate schol­ar­ship win­ners each receive $3,625. In addi­tion, the top can­di­dates (marked above with an aster­isk) have received spe­cial recog­ni­tion. 

Damaris Rene Zachos, Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, will receive a total of $5,000 for the Bell Schol­ar­ship, pro­vid­ed by a gen­er­ous VFF endow­ment from the com­pa­ny and award­ed to the top over­all scor­ing VFF recip­i­ent. 

Pao­la Zanel­la, Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, is receiv­ing $6,000 as the win­ner of the Dr. Jing Yen VFF Schol­ar­ship for Cost Aware­ness, giv­en to the most qual­i­fied appli­cant who shows inter­est in improv­ing the afford­abil­i­ty of rotor­craft. 

VFF and the VFS are both recog­nised by the US Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice as 501(c)(3) char­i­ties. VFS cov­ers all over­head costs of admin­is­tra­tion and account­ing, so 100 per cent of every tax-deductible con­tri­bu­tion to VFF goes direct­ly to stu­dent schol­ar­ships. 

The Ver­ti­cal Flight Foun­da­tion was estab­lished in 1967 as the phil­an­thropic arm of the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety. For more infor­ma­tion or to donate to this impor­tant cause, vis­it. A list of all past VFF schol­ar­ship win­ners and suc­cess sto­ries are also avail­able.