Each year PEGASAS nominates one of their Outstanding Student Researchers for the Department of Transportation Student of the Year Award. For the last four years our nominee has been awarded the DOT Student of the Year Award presented at the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) award ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Joshua Harris earned a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2014 and was voted the Outstanding Aerospace Engineering Senior by his student peers. In 2013 he interned at NASA Ames Research Center as a recipient of the NASA Aeronautics Scholarship Program, working on state analysis tools in support of the Space Launch System Program. He is a recipient of the National Defense, Science, and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship, and the Sigma Gamma Tau Southwestern Region Award. He recently graduated from the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory, where he was involved in research involving flight mechanics and control since his freshman year. His primary research interest is adaptive and resilient flight control for fixed-wing aircraft, and implementation of flight control laws on size, weight, power, and cost-constrained small Unmanned Aircraft Systems. He worked closely with PEGASAS Site Director and researcher, John Valasek on the Derived Angle of Attack project. He was a student member of AIAA, IEEE, SIA and Sigma Gamma Tau, and he is an associate member of the AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Committee. Josh recently received the Texas A&M University's Distinguished Graduate Student Award which is the highest recognition a graduate stduent can earn at TAMU.
Joshua Harris, the 2017 DOT Student of the Year is pictured with Dr. Patricia Watts (National Program Director, FAA Air Transportation Centers of Excellence), Dr. Halil Ceylan (PEGASAS Site Director and Ryan Kind (FAA Program Manager, PEGASAS).