Three Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering faculty members were recently honored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) with selection to the 2015 Class of AIAA Fellows and Honorary Fellows.

Benn T. Zinn, Regents' Professor and David S. Lewis, Jr. Chair, was given the status of AIAA Honorary Fellow. Honorary Fellow is the highest distinction conferred by AIAA, and recognizes preeminent individuals who have had long and highly contributory careers in aerospace and who embody the highest possible standards in aeronautics and astronautics. Zinn was one of four selected for this honor.   

Zinn joined the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1965 and attained the rank of Regents' Professor in 1973. His fields of research include: control of combustion processes, combustion instabilities in rocket motors, ramjets, jet engine and gas turbines, oscillatory flame phenomena, reacting flows, acoustics and pulse combustion. He has published 117 refereed papers and 213 reports and unrefereed papers, edited two AIAA Progress Series books on combustion diagnostics, wrote the section on "Pulsating Combustion" for a book entitled Advanced Combustion Methods, which was published by Academic Press, and he has given 354 seminars/lectures at various universities and conferences throughout the world. He is also a co-holder of seven patents. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

In addition, Timothy Lieuwen, and E. Glenn Lightsey, were conferred with the Fellow distinction. AIAA confers the distinction of Fellow upon individuals in recognition of their notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics.

Lieuwen, a professor in AE, is active in both instruction and research programs. His interests lie in the areas of acoustics, fluid mechanics, combustion, and signal processing. He is responsible for teaching several courses in the areas of fluid mechanics, aeroacoustics and combustion. His research activities involve both theoretical and experimental work in combustion, flame-acoustic wave interactions, combustion noise, and development of ultrasonic diagnostic techniques.

Lightsey recently joined the AE faculty at Georgia Tech as a professor of aerospace engineering. He came to Tech from the University of Texas-Austin where is was the founder and director of the Texas Spacecraft Lab. His research focuses on the technology of satellites, including: guidance, navigation, and control systems; attitude determination and control; proximity operations and spacecraft rendezvous; cooperative control; space based Global Positioning System receivers; radionavigation; visual navigation; propulsion; satellite operations; formation flying, satellite swarms and satellite networks; and space systems engineering.

"This year, as in every year, each of the nominees for AIAA Fellow stands at the top of our aerospace community in terms of their contributions to our profession, and that makes our selection process a particularly difficult one,” said George Muellner, chair of the AIAA Fellows Selection Committee. “In the end, we picked 22 individuals whose work has been truly outstanding. We congratulate our Class of 2015 AIAA Fellows and we look forward to their continued roles in shaping the future of aerospace.”

AIAA is the largest aerospace professional society in the world, serving a diverse range of more than 30,000 individual members from 88 countries, and 95 corporate members.