AAE Professor Kathleen has been selected to receive the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics Elmer F. Bruhn Award for 2017.

The Bruhn award is presented annually to an outstanding teacher in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics and is made possible by the generosity of friends and alumni of the school. The winner is selected by the AAE undergraduate student body. Howell previously won the award in 1984, 1987, 1990, 1995, 2002, 2005, and 2010.

The faculty members who received the next highest votes for the Bruhn Award were Professor Dan Dumbacher and Professor Jim Longuski.

The winner of the Bruhn Award becomes the School's nominee for the College of Engineering's annual A.A. Potter Best Teacher Award.

Howell has taught aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue since 1982. She is an expert on spacecraft navigation and orbital mechanics and the motion of man-made objects in space. She has designed novel trajectories for spacecraft that have enabled some space missions and was largely responsible for the design of the intricate series of Cassini spacecraft maneuvers that contributed to the success of the ongoing exploration of Saturn and its moons. She has developed techniques that help reduce the cost in fuel and design time for planetary missions with spaceships in orbits near points in the solar system where satellites can be safely placed to study the sun and facilitate communication with astronauts and vehicles on the dark side of the moon.