Eight graduating seniors honored with department and college commencement awards

Both Academic Excellence and Overall Achievement department awards were conferred during the Aerospace Engineering Pre-Commencement Reception December 17.

Samuel Barton will step into a career plan to become an aviator in the U.S. Navy. He will be commissioned into the Navy later in the day December 17. He will eventually begin flight training in Pensacola, Florida. He minored in Military Science. He was the ISU Naval ROTC Battalion Executive Officer for the fall 2022 semester, which included leading other ROTC members and ensuring that the unit was accomplishing training goals.

Hannah Blumhoefer was named College of Engineering Outstanding Senior Graduate for Aerospace Engineering, in addition to receiving the department’s Academic Excellence Award. She is a Tau Beta Pi endowed scholar, and is an ISU Engineering Scholarship awardee. She completed her Iowa State education in the top two percent of her graduating class, was a member of the Dean’s List for six semesters and is graduating Summa Cum Laude.

Hannah has been the project lead for the Aerodynamics senior design team, running calculations to ensure flight capabilities in aircraft design and coordinating between other teams for system integration.

Hannah worked with two research groups on three different projects in Aerospace Engineering. Two of her projects have been with Dr. Anupam Sharma. In one project she made substantive contributions to designing an anechoic wind tunnel test section for the department’s Bill James Wind Tunnel by analyzing existing anechoic wind tunnel designs and creating a design that works at ISU. Based on her work Dr. Sharma is proposing to build a test section in the fall of 2023. Her second project with Dr. Sharma was on utilizing machine learning algorithms for detecting discontinuities in computational fluid dynamics simulations of compressible flows. As a part of the project, she taught herself many fundamentals and algorithms. Most recently she has worked with the department’s Dr. Ossama Abdelkhalik on modeling wave energy. She modified an existing model to produce more energy and has tested various simulations. A conference paper detailing her research is being developed.

Hannah has also served as a college-bound mentor for an Ames High School female student and has participated in the Society for Women Engineers at Iowa State.

She also completed an internship at Minnesota Valley Testing Laboratories.

Christopher J. Dupuis completed internships at NASA’s Langley Research Center and Marshall Space Flight Center and with Orolia Defense and Security. He was part of Iowa State’s Physics Club and minored in computer science.

Ethan Geer has devoted much of his studies at Iowa State to planning for service in the U.S. Navy. He will be commissioning into the Navy later in the day December 17 and will pursue a career as a Naval aviator, with flight training commencing later at Pensacola, Florida. His minor has been Military Studies – Naval Science and he was a member of Iowa State Naval ROTC. He was also a member of the Sextant Society. He served as president of ISU’s John Paul Jones Society, an organization that helps students learn about Naval and Marine Corps culture as well as providing opportunities for learning and exercising leadership, management, and organizational skills. While pursuing his aerospace engineering major he completed an internship with MidAmerican Energy.

Khushi Kapoor studied abroad in Spain with Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and engaged in internships with Collins Aerospace, Jobi Aviation and Hudl, a firm that works with high school, club and youth sports in the areas of video and data. She was technical project lead with hydrogen research for the New Vista special projects acquisition company through the Student Innovation Center’s Innovation Fellows Program; was project director of GoFly, an eVTOL drone project through the Student Innovation Center; served as system team lead for the CyLaunch Rocketry team and was hydrogen lead with the FlyHy team in the Department of Aerospace Engineering’s Make to Innovate program.

Khushi was also involved with the ISU student chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and on the executive board three years; Women In Science and Engineering (WiSE) as a peer facilitator and mentor; with the ISU Volleyball Club as a team member; and the ISU Fashion Show as a model.

She will be employed as a systems engineer with Boeing Phantom Works in St. Louis.

Abigayle Moser served as a Blue Integrated Partnership Project Lead & Mentor, an Office of Naval Research-funded program for future leaders; as a Vertically Integrated Project teaching assistant and mentor – a summer program mentoring students and leading groups for research projects; an undergraduate research ambassador and senior undergraduate research mentor, working with students and hosting seminars about getting involved in research; and as leadership and recruitment chair of the ISU Climate Reality Campus Corps. She was part of the U.S. Department of Energy Collegiate Wind Competition.

Moser completed co-op and internship opportunities with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (techno-economic analyst); Purdue University National Science Foundation (fellow); and Purdue University Office of Naval Research (research fellow and mentor).

She took third place in the Carbon Negative contest for ISU sustainability and second place in the oral competition for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation.

She will attend Purdue University with a fully-funded direct Ph.D. program in mechanical engineering.

Joel Stahr is graduating from the department after completing internships at Frontline BioEnergy and Danfoss Power Solutions, where he obtained experience in project management. He was also involved in the department’s Make To Innovate program. He was a member of Iowa State cheerleading and also enjoys climbing/mountain climbing and badminton. He will begin employment with Collins Aerospace as a systems engineer.

Samuel Wente was part of ISU’s Naval ROTC program, where he was a battalion leader, and minored in Military Studies. He plans to join the U.S. Navy following graduation.