November 9, 2012
Two women in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics have been honored as recipients of the prestigious Amelia Earhart Fellowship. Sonia Hernandez and Divya Thakur were honored at a ceremony at the AT&T Executive Conference Center at The University of Texas at Austin on October 27, 2012.
The Amelia Earhart fellowship was established in 1983 in honor of famed pilot and Zontian, Amelia Earhart The fellowship of $10,000 is awarded annually to women pursuing doctoral degrees in aerospace related fields. It is awarded to 35 fellows around the globe each year and is given by the Zonta Foundation, a global organization of executives and professionals working together to advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy.
Sonia Hernandez
Sonia Hernandez is a two-time recipient of the Amelia Earhart Fellowship, winning it consecutively in 2011 and 2012. Her pursuit of success has taken her a long way from home. Growing up in Madrid, Spain, she knew she wanted to come to the United States to complete her education. After attending college for two years in Spain, she transferred to St. Louis University. She graduated in 2007 with a BS in aerospace engineering before attending the University of Maryland for her master’s degree.
“As I was finishing my master’s at Maryland, I knew my passion was focused on space research,” Hernandez said. “Apart from the fact that I fell in love with Austin when I came to visit, UT has one of the best programs in the country, so I decided I wanted to come here for my PhD to work with Dr. Cesar Ocampo.”
Since then she has transitioned to work with Dr. Maruthi Akella, who is now her PhD advisor.
“The professors in the ASE department at UT have such a deep understanding of their respective fields, and that enables the students to take that knowledge and run with it. I know am particularly indebted to both Dr. Ocampo and Dr. Akella for the knowledge they have imparted on me.”
Hernandez’s research is focused on spacecraft trajectory design. She is currently working on a project that designs trajectories to near-earth asteroids. There are thousands of asteroids orbiting the sun, some of which are relatively close to Earth. One fear is that one or more of these asteroids could crash into Earth. Hernandez is researching an effective method to deflect the asteroids away from our planet in hopes of preventing a mass catastrophe in the near future.
In addition to research, Hernandez’s passion is teaching. She is teaching physics this semester and also volunteers with Austin Partners in Education, tutoring low-income students who are struggling with math.
During the summers, Hernandez works in a co-op position at NASA. After graduating in spring 2014, she plans to return to NASA to work full time to gain industrial experience. Ultimately, she plans to return to academia to teach and do research.
Divya Thakur
Divya Thakur has spent the last ten years on the forty acres – both as an undergraduate and graduate student, receiving her BS and MS in aerospace engineering. She is currently pursuing a PhD in the same field and credits UT and the ASE/EM department with shaping her into who she is today.
Thakur has worked on a variety of research projects during her time at UT. As an undergraduate, she spent two years working as a research assistant at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).
“TACC helped in shaping my undergraduate career,” Thakur said. “It gave me a lot of research experience and helped push me in the direction of graduate school. The people are great and have supported me in my education.”
When she began pursuing her master’s degree, she worked with Dr. Belinda Marchand on developing optimal drug therapies for the management of acute HIV infection.
“That was a very interesting project because it was different from the typical aerospace problem,” Thakur said. “Yet the tools I was using all originated from the aerospace field.”
Thakur is working towards her PhD under the direction of Dr. Maruthi Akella. Her current research focuses on cooperative control – fleets of multiple autonomous vehicles that work in a coordinated manner to complete a task that is too difficult or too expensive to do with a single larger vehicle.
“One of the biggest benefits of replacing a large spacecraft with a multiple vehicle system is that you get better performance efficiency and build robustness into your mission,” Thakur said. “When you work with one vehicle, if it fails, the mission is over. But if one vehicle fails when you are using multiple vehicles, your mission can continue.”
Thakur plans to graduate in December 2013. During her time at UT, she found her passion for teaching and plans to return to that after graduation.
“When I started grad school, I was really inspired by the teaching element of academia,” Thakur said. “Because I’ve been a teaching assistant for so long, I have realized how gratifying teaching is. But I also enjoy research, so I’m keeping my options open.”
