Two AAE graduate students earned a Best Student Paper award from AIAA. Samantha Alberts was the lead author on the technical paper entitled, “Experiment Design for Measuring Accommodation Coefficients for Modeling of Long-Duration Spaceflight Cryogenic Propellants.” Praveen Srikanth was the co-author. Both are students of Prof. Steven Collicott. He and Prof. Stephen Heister were advisers on the paper, which was named AIAA Best Student Paper by the AIAA Aerospace Power Systems Technical Committee.

Alberts says she is honored to receive the recognition. She says the paper focused on the initial CFD and experiment design work for measuring evaporation and condensation rates of rocket propellant. 

“Accurate measurement of these rates will allow for more efficient storage of cryogenic propellants for long-duration and deep space missions,” says Alberts.

Srikanth says he is grateful to Dr. Collicott and everyone who guided him and Alberts in this achievement.

“It is an amazing feeling to be recognized for your work, especially as a graduate student, as it gives you confidence that you are on the right path,” says Srikanth. 

A certificate of merit will be presented at the AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum and Exposition this July in Atlanta, Georgia.   

pictured clockwise from top left: Samantha Alberts, Praveen Srikanth, Dr. Steven Collicott, Dr. Stephen Heister