Dr. Anette M. Karlsson, a mechanical and aerospace engineer and a highly accomplished academic leader, has been named Chancellor of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s campus in Prescott, Arizona.

Twenty-two highly accomplished students will receive generous scholarships as part of a strategic effort to expand and diversify the aviation workforce, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and The Boeing Company announced today at the Paris Air Show.

Enterprise Florida, Team Volusia, Space Florida, Volusia County and the City of Daytona Beach Collaborate to Bring New High-Paying Jobs to Central Florida

As a child, Kyle P. Williams (’16), of Massapequa, N.Y., loved Lego, working on cars and any other activity that allowed him to work with his hands. Now, working at SpaceX, he’s transformed his childhood hobby into the career of a lifetime. It’s an exciting time to be working at SpaceX. Last month marked the long-awaited launch of the company’s Starlink project, when the company sent the first 60 of 12,000 planned satellites into orbit as an alternative means of providing high-speed internet to users on Earth. The project is a first of its kind, according to Mechanical Engineering professor Dr. Sathya Gangadharan — but missions of this size would never succeed, he said, without the help of Embry-Riddle alumni. “SpaceX is pushing the forefront of exploring new worlds and new technology,” Williams said. “We are a groundbreaking company. We do things that people think are impossible.”

A team of seven Aerospace Engineering students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Prescott campus has designed and produced a camera attachment system for the International Space Station (ISS), and were selected to participate in NASA’s Micro-G NExT challenge in Houston, TX in early June. Project CAM (Camera Attachment Mechanism) was devised by the student team to assist astronauts venturing into the vacuum of space by providing additional camera coverage during Extra Vehicular Activities (EVA) beyond standard helmet camera attachments, which provide limited views of EVA to mission control.

Helping more students succeed in becoming professional engineers is the goal of a $599,485 research project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and headed up at Embry-Riddle’s Worldwide Campus by Dr. Jeremy V. Ernst. The multi-university project aims to transform rote, lecture-style educational approaches to actively engage first-year engineering students in learning. Using an “active performance-based learning” or APL framework originally developed for an engineering graphics design course at North Carolina State University, researchers will fine-tune and scale up the content. Ultimately, Ernst and his colleagues hope to share the curriculum with many other institutions across the country.

Jackie Litzinger is the Daytona Beach Campus’s new Director of Safety & Security. She was appointed in March following the retirement of Kevin Mannix.

Twenty-one oyster reefs near Edgewater, Fla., are the focus of a new partnership between Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of Central Florida (UCF) to develop methodologies for remotely mapping regions that would otherwise be difficult, and expensive, to monitor on site. The goal of the research is simple: Using Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), survey the reefs to gather information, including exact oyster counts and virtual imaging, without ever visiting the locations in person. If the project proves successful, according to Dr. Dan Macchiarella, professor of Aeronautical Science, it would signal a clear change in the way environmental data have traditionally been collected. It would mean progress.

In summer 2021, Embry-Riddle’s Dr. Aroh Barjatya and his students will launch two identical rockets from tiny Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, northeast of Papua New Guinea, thanks to a new $1.3 million NASA research award.

Students and faculty of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will provide crucial weather support to 10 vintage World War II C-47s and DC-3s as they cross the Atlantic to the 75th anniversary reenactment of the Normandy invasion. During the largest seaborne invasion in history – also called D-Day – more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a heavily fortified French coastline to fight the Nazi regime on June 6, 1944. “This historical mission will allow me to include my students in understanding transoceanic weather support in a real-world scenario,” said Debbie Schaum, associate chair and associate professor of meteorology in Embry-Riddle’s Applied Aviation Sciences department. Schaum is being joined in the effort by Associate Professor Dr. Shawn Milrad as well as Assistant Professors Dr. Daniel Halperin and Spectrum News 13’s Rob Eicher, all fellow meteorology faculty.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – In the most important annual contest for college aviators – the Safety and Flight Evaluation Conference (SAFECON) competition – Embry-Riddle’s Prescott, Ariz. and Daytona Beach Fla. flight teams placed third and seventh respectively, excelling in many of the nearly two dozen individual flight and ground events. SAFECON, presented by the National Intercollegiate Flying Association (NIFA), included 350+ contestants from 30 elite collegiate flight teams from across the country. These students participated in 23 different flight and ground events, including ground-based activities and flying tests for individuals and teams. Contestants were judged on their expertise in flight planning, simulator flights, navigation, interviewing, preflighting, precision landing contests, power-off landings and other aviation-related challenges. The 2019 SAFECON was hosted by the University of Wisconsin and held at the Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport (JVL).

In 2018, Embry-Riddle became the first school to receive Trusted Operator Program (TOP) certification from the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). The following Q&A was inspired in part by a Commercial UAV News interview with Dr. Joseph Cerreta, assistant professor for Embry-Riddle Worldwide.

As soon as Lindsey Cromwell graduated from college in 2015, her father started telling her to get a master’s degree. In the spring of 2016, she gave in — but only under one condition. “Okay, here’s the deal,” she told him. “I’ll do it if you do it with me.” Three years later, both Cromwells will receive master’s degrees in Engineering Management at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University commencement on Saturday, June 1, in Pensacola, Fla. “Getting a master’s degree in engineering with your daughter is something that you don’t usually get the opportunity to do,” said Lindsey’s father, Brian.