Second technical excellence poster session scheduled

  • Published
  • By Darbie Sizemore
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  The Arnold Association of Professional Societies (AAPS) in conjunction with the AEDC Technical Excellence Board (TEB) will hold the second annual Technical Excellence Poster Session Oct. 20.

This event will be the October Technical Excellence Seminar and will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the AEDC Training Facility. The event will feature the work of early career aerospace professionals with 15 years or less of cumulative professional work experience.

"The intent is to develop the technical and presentation skills of early career employees and provide visibility for their work," said Dustin Crider, Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA) Space and Missiles Technology project manager and chair of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Tennessee Section Young Professionals. "Each participant will create a poster highlighting a technical aspect or aspects of work he or she has performed within the last two years. The posters will be technically focused but will also give the needed background information for the topic being presented."

Last year, 24 engineers presented posters highlighting their work over the last two years. They represented all areas of AEDC and Tunnel 9, including members of the military, government and contractor workforces.

"We were very excited to have that many participants; the room was full, he said. "The real purpose of the event was to develop technical excellence with the early career professionals, engineers and scientists and government contractors, and to help them develop technical writing skills, presentation skills and also get visibility for their work."

Last year's event also garnered the attention of AIAA in the form of an award.

The inaugural poster event was recognized as a first place winner of an Outstanding Activity Award in the "medium" category, which is based on membership size. AIAA section awards annually "honor particularly notable achievements made by member sections in offering activities that fulfills AIAA's mission in a wide range of fields."

This award allows AIAA to "acknowledge sections that held an outstanding activity deserving of additional recognition."

"We were extremely excited to be recognized in this way," Crider said. "The early career workforce does a lot of great work out here, and we want to make people aware of it. These employees are the foundation and future of AEDC."

Last year, Inna Kurits, a project engineer at Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 in White Oak, Md., won first place for her presentation, TSP (Temperature Sensitive Paint) System Development and Implementation at AEDC Tunnel 9, while second place went to Andy Escue, a modeling and analysis engineer for Dynetics, with Transient Model of a Steam Accumulator.

Third place involved a three-way tie between Brian Binkley, an engineer/scientist and propulsion analyst in Facilities and Test Technology, Modeling and Analysis of Eductor System Performance; Carrie Reinholtz, a technology project manager in the Technology Branch, Background-Oriented Schlieren Capabilities (BOS) at AEDC; and Kent Wilcher, a scientist/engineer working in the Instrumentation and Diagnostics Section of the Technology and Analysis Branch, Combustion Diagnostics Using Extractive Gas Analysis.