AeroAstro 2026 Community Awards

Spring once again marked a season of recognizing accomplishments for Course XVI, as students, faculty, staff, and researchers were honored for not only their achievements in mentorship, leadership, and research, but the ways they support and inspire those around them throughout the year.

Undergraduate

Undergraduate seniors were honored at an off-campus dinner, where Department Head Julie Shah, Associate Department Head Olivier de Weck, and Academic Programs Specialists Marie Stuppard and Beata Tunik presented awards recognizing their achievements and contributions during their time in the department. The awards and their recipients are:

• Admiral Luis de Florez Award: Brenda Chow ‘26, Aaron K. Viet ‘26
• Apollo Program Prize: Michael Lee Tibbs PhD ‘26, Lanie McKinney (Aerospace Plasma Group)
• General James H. Doolittle Prize: Trevor Johst ‘26, Suchitha Channapatna ‘26
• James Means Memorial Award: Caitlin Lian ‘26, Cesar Meza ‘25, Elizabeth Romero ‘26
• Rene H. Miller Prize: Alex Miller (Human Systems Lab), Hailey Polson ‘26
• Andrew J. Morsa Prize: Sera Hamilton ‘26, Sammy Krem ‘26
• Yngve K. Raustein Memorial Award: Marc D. Nichitiu ‘28
• Henry Webb Salisbury Award: Suchitha Channapatna ‘26, Luke Kelly ‘26, Benjamin Lammers ‘26, Caitlin Lian ‘26, Elizabeth Tupaj ‘26, Dashiel DeStefano ‘26
• Thomas B. Sheridan Award: Mollie Edmonson ‘26
• Graduate Teaching Assistantship Award: Andy Eskenazi (Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment), Andrew Fishberg (Aerospace Controls Lab), Kir Latyshev (Engineering Systems Lab)

AIAA Awards

The MIT chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics held their annual awards ceremony to recognize outstanding Course XVI mentors and educators. The recipients are:

• UROP Advisor: Prof. Masha Folk
• TAs: Joachim Bron and Roger (Wenyuan) Hou, 16.811
• Academic Advisor: Prof. Chuchu Fan

At the Institute level, Afreen Siddiqi, research scientist in the Engineering Systems Laboratory, received an MIT Outstanding UROP Mentor Award for her exceptional guidance and teaching as a research mentor throughout the past year.

Department Awards

The annual Community Recognition and Awards event honored exceptional individuals and teams within AeroAstro for their contributions to the department over the past year. Peers nominated colleagues for three signature awards: the Spirit of XVI Wings Award, the Upstander Award, and the Vickie Kerrebrock Awards.

The awards were presented to the following:

The Spirit of XVI Wings Award: Robin Courchesne-Sato, Senior Administrative Assistant in AeroAstro HQ
From her nomination: “She is one of the hardest workers in our department. She always delivers the highest level of service, dependability, and professionalism. She brings a welcoming, grounding presence to the office and excels at everything she does. She expresses gratitude genuinely and freely, and accepts praise with humility and grace. What truly distinguishes her is her character: she is unfailingly diligent, kind, and unflappable. She remains a calm, reassuring presence that others instinctively trust.”

The Upstander Award: Emily Albornoz ‘26
From her nomination: “Emily is a crucial member of the Women in Aerospace executive team, who uplifts our members, helping connect them to the department and each other, as well as develop professionally.”

The Vickie Kerrebrock Awards, presented to graduate and undergraduate students, staff, faculty, researchers, and postdocs, were given to:

• Undergraduate: Elizabeth Romero ‘26, whose nominators appreciate the ways that she “creates an inclusive and welcoming environment where every student feels valued, heard, and encouraged to succeed. She ensures that everyone feels welcome and included, working hard to find convenient meeting times for everyone on the AIAA board,  and starts each meeting with a name memorization game until every board member knows all the others.”
• Graduate: Allan Shtofenmakher, DINaMo, whose nominators describe him as “a tireless champion of community-building. He’s well-known in our department as the ‘dREFs guy’, and he genuinely wants to know how people are doing and how he can make their days better. He is the only person I know who would spend his weekends taking a conflict mediation course just so that he can help others better. Offhandedly, he had mentioned that he was organizing a lunch for a new PI’s students because he can understand how isolating it can be to join a new lab halfway through the year.”
• Administrative Staff: Brian Mernoff, Communication Lab Manager and host of AeroAstro’s monthly Maker Meetings. Nominators say that he “has a way of making things doable. He is intentionally creating opportunities for people to learn, share, and feel a sense of belonging within the department. His work on digital accessibility, too, speaks to his real passion for helping people. He steps up where he may not have to, where it may not be part of his job description, but where we are all better and more inclusive for it.”
• Support Staff: Gabby Hoyte, Administrative Assistant, whose nominators noted that “she remembers that colleagues are people first. Her humor and curiosity make working with her a pleasure, and she has a gift for making others feel valued and supported. She notices when someone might need a word of encouragement or a moment of laughter. She lifts up her colleagues not through grand gestures, but through consistent, genuine care and attention.”
• Faculty: Professor Carmen Guerra-Garcia, who was described as someone who “has a clear heart for students, staff, and faculty; she is excellent at noticing good work in others and encouraging students to do their best. She cares for her graduate students by encouraging us all in lab meetings, frequently highlighting and celebrating small achievements in experiments, publications, or presentations. She makes an effort to meet with UROP students and talks about the quality of their work with other research collaborators, fostering interpersonal connection between lab members and collaborators.”