SEAS Alumnus Thomas Horvath Named the 2006 AIAA Engineer of the Year

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) announced on February 14th that SEAS alumnus Thomas Horvath has been selected as the 2006 AIAA Engineer of the Year.

The Engineer of the Year Award provides unique recognition to an individual member of AIAA who has distinguished himself in some facet of aerospace engineering. The award will be presented to Horvath on June 6, 2006 during the 36th AIAA Thermophysics and Heat Transfer Conference to be held in San Francisco, California.

Horvath has been a member of the Aerothermodynamics Branch at the NASA Langley Research Center for 19 years and has authored or co-authored 71 technical papers, including the AIAA best thermophysics paper in 2001. He has degrees in physics and aeronautical engineering from Ripon College and The George Washington University, respectively. Most recently, Horvath has distinguished himself in his role as technical project manager/lead for all Shuttle Return-to-Flight efforts within the Aerothermodynamics Branch at Langley. His programmatic and technical leadership was essential to the development of engineering tools to disposition thermal protection system damage to the Shuttle Orbiter during STS-114.

The citation for the Award will read, "For exemplary contributions to understanding of Space Shuttle orbiter aerothermodynamic phenomena which were critical to the Columbia accident investigation, and the safe entry of Discovery on the STS-114 Return-to-Flight mission."

More information about the AIAA is available at www.aiaa.org.