This is the second time in the last decade that Smith has been recognized with a NASA Group Achievement Award

Dr. Marilyn SmithA team of AE researchers, headed up by AE professor and GT-VLRCOE associate director, Marilyn J. Smith, has been recognized by NASA for its rotorcraft contributions towards the development of FUN3D, a suite of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools that is actively maintained by NASA to benefit the fields of aeronautics, space technology and exploration in research involving modeling fluid flow.

Smith, along with three of her PhD graduates, Jennifer Abras (Navy NAVAIR), Eric Lynch (Navy NAVAIR), and  David O’Brien (Army AED), officially received the NASA Group Achievement Award during ceremonies held in October at NASA Langley Research Center. The team was commended for their work in expanding the capabilities of the code for applications to rotorcraft, including the addition of overset meshing, actuator disk/blades, aeroelastic rotor blades, and advanced turbulence models.

“We are very proud of Dr. Smith’s work in this area,” said AE chair Dr. Vigor Yang.

“She has long been a noted leader in rotorcraft research and development. We are thrilled that her diligence in spreading that wisdom to the next generation of aerospace engineers has been noted by NASA, too.”

This NASA certificate is awarded to any combination of government and/or non-government individuals for an outstanding group accomplishment that has contributed substantially to NASA's mission. Their work must be judged to be cost-effective, have significant impact on NASA’s programs or operations, and able to respond to unforeseen crises. Awardees are also noted for their project’s development of innovative approaches and its contribution to NASA’s lessons-learned data bank.