Published: May 10, 2024 • By Jeff Zehnder

Team CHIMERA

Check out photos from the Aerospace Reception and Student Awards Ceremonies on Flickr

Congratulations to the Smead Aerospace Class of 2024! As part of our annual graduation ceremonies, we are recognizing outstanding students and teams for special achievements.

These honors were announced during a reception May 9 that included undergraduate and graduate awards as well as special recognition for each PhD graduate.

Most Outstanding Senior

  • Maggie Wussow 

Chancellor’s Recognition Award (4.0 GPA)

  • Ryan Caputo
  • Yarden Kelmann
  • Gavin Thomas

CU Engineering Perseverance Award

  • Mark Wilbourne

Graduate Award for Teaching

  • Esther Revenga Villagra
  • Samantha Sheppard

Graduate Award for Service

  • Renee Spear
  • Chloe Long

Graduate Award for Research

  • Aaron Allred
  • Damennick Henry

Senior Project Team Awards

El Capitan Award

This award recognizes teams that tackled a tremendously challenging project in terms of scope, and persevered despite significant setbacks. 

  • CHIMERA Teams
    • Team HADES: Sydney Alcaraz, Krivi Gupta, Taylor Meyer, Mike Sherman, Dylan Blake, Chris Kong, Gavin Morales, Adrian Tabin, Ashton Croft, Alex McCulley, Jacob Vermeer, Cameron Pelkey
    • Team PRIUS: Caedin Curl, Nicholas Jones, Max Parry, David Tan, Alexander Herring, Ashton Miner, Yuzhou Shen, Connor Triplett, Blake Hogen, Jonathan Morris, Cris Stancu, Eduardo Villalobos
    • Team TOPSOIL: Matt Bechtel, Matt Gozum, Brad Lindroth, Luis Romo, Ben Chapel, Chayce Johnson, Nathaniel Meyer, Brendan Ross, Rachel Gardner, Chris Ladaw, Nicolas Otala, Shiv Srivastava

First Penguin Award

In nature, the first penguin that jumps in the water takes a huge risk. This award recognizes a team that took a significant risk by implementing a novel and creative design approach 

  • Team REACH: Gabriel Agostine, Jacob Ecks, Brendan Sheets, Jack Stohs, Max Balasubramaniam, Marc Krolla, Tyler Soper, Ethan Breaux, Alyxis Ellington, Lizzy McPherson, Jacob Spagnolli

Ad Astra Award

Ad Astra is Latin for ‘To the stars’, which encompasses the spirit of aerospace engineering. This award recognizes a team that had an on-time delivery of an industry quality design that completed the mission. 

  • Team DOMAIN: Jonathan Abrams, Ian Faber, Matthew Januszewski, Colton Brown, Reid Godbey, Vasco Pereira, Ryan Caputo, Muhannad Ibrahim, Anna Sophia Rorrer Warren

The Gold Medal Award

This award recognizes teams that developed graduate level technical models that accurately predicted design behavior.

  • Team ATTACKS: Aidan Bagley, Zach Chen, Liam Harris, Eric Sorenson, Souvik Chatterjee, Joshua Elston, Alex Lam, Gavin Thomas, Matt Chen, Rithik Gangopadhyay, Yun Yang, Nic Perrault
  • Team AeroSAUR: Kieryn Boyles, Tori Morgheim, Shawyong Shawyong, Benjamin Watanapongse, Jp Burbage, Emma Pautler, Angelina Miller, Andrew Pixley, Chaney Sullivan

Ralphie Award

In the spirit of our mascot Ralphie, this award recognizes a team that best represented CU AES by demonstrating professionalism throughout the year. 

  • Team CUBED: Tanner Brummond, Steven Liu, Kevin McGough, Mark Wilbourne, Jack Iribarren, Aidan Luczkow, Abby Rindfuss, Kate Kosmicki, Abby Mason, Andras Szalay 

Senior Project Individual Awards

Most Effective Project Manager

  • Gavin Morales

Most Effective Systems and Testing Engineers

  • Katy McCutchan
  • Ethan Stapp

Technical Leadership - Mechanical

  • Nate Witonsky
  • Justin McGregor
  • Samuel Mohnacs 

 Technical Leadership - Electrical

  • Jennifer Cuevas-Morales

Technical Leadership - Embedded Software

  • Nolan Stevenson
  • Nico Madrid
  • Mitchell Buck
  • Anthony Maurello 

Technical Leadership - Software Implementation

  • Sean Vestecka 

Most Valuable Aerospace Buff

  • John Davis
  • Alyx Ellington 

The Autonomous Deployable Navigation and Nap Integration Expert (ANNIE) Award

  • Annie Wilbourne

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