Alumni News

Abbas Alahyari (Ph.D. 1995) is a Research Engineer at BOC Corporation in Murray Hill, NJ.

Alan Bartos received his bachelors degree in AEM December 1987. He is currently supporting shuttle missions from Johnson Space Center as a Flight Activities Officer (FAO). The FAO writes and manages the flight plan, which is the shuttle's on-orbit schedule or timeline. Among the various flights Alan supports, he is the lead FAO for STS-82, the second Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission scheduled for February 1977. In addition, he is a Texas Army National Guard Captain, flying Blackhawk helicopters with the lst/149th Aviation Battation.

Col. Donald D. Carlson who received his bachelors degree here and his masters degree from Princeton, passed away November 16th, 1996. He was in the Air Force for many years. He was a fighter pilot in WWII and worked as an engineer and test pilot after that. His career included working on top-secret work at the Pentagon during the Vietnam War; serving as an advisor to Lyndon Johnson on surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles; and working as an engineer with NASA. After retiring from the military, he was president of Research Inc. and then moved on to consulting work for electronics and marketing firms.

Gene Austin (L) and Steve Cook (R) accepting
the ASA Special chair's award.

Steve Cook (BAEM, 1990) of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center X-vehicle program, accepted with Gene Austin the Aerospace States Association Special Chair's Award, for their work on the advanced technology launch vehicle being built by Lockheed-Martin Corporation.

Jorge Encalada (B.A.E.M. 1981), is the Manager of the Flight Controls section of the Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles, California.

Howard Hu (Ph.D., Aero. Eng., 1992), is presently an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the recipient of The Young Scientist Multiphase Breakthrough Award in 1998. He is recognized for pioneering contributions to direct numerical simulations of the motion of particles in Newtonian and viscoelastic flows in which the fluid and particle motions are determined without approximation from their respective equations of motion. The award will be presented at the International Conference on Multiphase Flow in 1998 in Lyon, France.

William J. Kirscher (B.S. 1989) worked for the Johnson Space Center in Houston for 6 l/2 years and is now currently working for Hughes Information Technology Systems in Denver, CO.

Jeff Koss (M.S. Aero. Eng. 1981) is at the Eglin AFB in Florida. He anticipates being made a Lt. Col. this summer and will be attending the Defense Systems Management College in Virginia in the fall.

Thomas A. Konicke (B.S. 1980; M.S. Aero. Eng. 1993), is at the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Command at Kirtland AFB in Alburquerque, NM. He is a program/test manager for AIM-9X which is a new IR missile.

Nathan Rich, who received his BAEM degree in 1993, went on to get his MA degree in Science, Technology and Public Policy from the George Washington University in May of 1995. He began working as a Data Technician for Interferometrics Inc. at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, in February of 1996, working on the LASCO instrument on the SOHO spacecraft (Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph).

Peter John Torvik, (B.S. 1960, Aero; M.S. 1962, PhD 1965 , Mechanics & Materials), recently retired after 32 years on the faculty of the Air Force Institute of Technology. While at Minnesota, he was employed in virtually every possible student capacity: Engineering Assistant, Engineer, Teaching Assistant, Research Assistant, Fellow and Instructor. His doctoral dissertation was written under the guidance of Professor Plunkett. In 1964, he took a faculty position at AFIT in the Department of Mechanics, later merged with other departments and reorganized into a Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He was promoted to Professor in 1973 and served as Department Head from 1980 to 1990, at which time he returned to the faculty. During the time he was head, the AFIT department alternated with the departments at Stanford and MIT as the three largest in the country in terms of graduate degrees awarded annually. Honors received by Professor Torvik included election as Fellow of the ASME (1986), Fellow of the AIAA (1991), and Air Force Medals for Meritorious Civilian Service (1984), Exceptional Civilian Service (1991) and Outstanding Career Service (1996). He served regularly as an ABET program evaluator in Aerospace Engineering.

Susan Schmitt (BAEM 1989, M.S. Aero. Eng 1991), is currently at Boeing working on their new 747-X.

Terry Weber (B.A.E.M. 1981) has been at the Eglin AFB as the MDA unit chief for F-15 support and was assigned the Contractor Test Director for the X-36 aircraft. He will be moving to Edwards Air Force base in the summer.

We'd like to hear what you're doing, where you are, etc. You can either send the information to Donna Rosenthal, Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota, 110 Union St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455; send e-mail to Donna, or fax to (612)-626-1558. We'll make sure that it gets in our next newsletter.

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