Events Category: Lectures

2020 Yvonne C. Brill Lectureship in Aerospace Engineering

AIAA/NAE Yvonne C. Brill Lectureship recognizes A. Miguel San Martin, NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for his role in the Mars Science Lab.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) have selected Dr. Alejandro Miguel San Martin, Guidance & Control Section Chief Engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as the recipient of the fourth Yvonne C. Brill Lectureship in Aerospace Engineering. San Martin will present his lecture, “From Airbags to Wheels: The Evolution of GN&C for Entry, Descent, and Landing” on 7 October, 1100–1200 hrs ET, in conjunction with the virtual NAE Annual Meeting. Early in his career at JPL, San Martin participated in the Magellan mission to Venus and the Cassini mission to Saturn.He was later named Chief Engineer for the Guidance, Navigation, and Control system for the Pathfinder mission. He assumed the same role for the mission that landed the robotic vehicles Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in 2004. Most recently, he was the Chief Engineer for Guidance, Navigation, and Control for the Mars Science Laboratory, which landed Curiosity on the surface of Mars in 2012. He was a co-architect of Curiosity’s innovative SkyCrane landing architecture and also served as its Deputy Chief for Entry, Descent, and Landing. Throughout his career, San Martin has served as a panel consultant for various missions including Topex, Mars Polar Lander, Deep Impact, and Phoenix. San Martin has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University and an M.S. from MIT in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering with a specialization in Guidance, Navigation, and Control for interplanetary space exploration.

AIAA, with the participation and support of NAE, created the Yvonne C. Brill Lectureship in Aerospace Engineering to honor the memory of the late, pioneering rocket scientist, AIAA Honorary Fellow and NAE Member, Yvonne C. Brill. The lecture emphasizes research or engineering issues for space travel and exploration, aerospace education of students and the public, and other aerospace issues such as ensuring a diverse and robust engineering community.

2022 Yvonne C. Brill Lecture in Aerospace Engineering & Reception

This lecture is free and open to the public.

2022 Award Recipient:
Robert D. Braun
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL)

“Are We Alone? Grand Challenges in Solar System Exploration”

The lecture will discuss the search for signs of past or present life beyond Earth, a profound human endeavor that has occupied a place in our consciousness since humans first looked skyward. Braun will discuss how this quest requires an advance in space exploration capabilities, technologies, and knowledge that also informs our future on our home planet and the pace of human exploration beyond it. After decades of hard work, and through an interconnected set of missions, NASA stands poised to address this timeless question along multiple arcs. Braun will describe the scientific opportunities, locales, technologies, and missions from which we may advance our understanding of the potential for life elsewhere in the universe. The goals and present status of multiple astrobiology missions planned for the next decade will be highlighted.

About the Yvonne C. Brill Lecture in Aerospace Engineering

The Yvonne C. Brill Lecture in Aerospace Engineering was established in 2013 in memory of Yvonne Brill, pioneering rocket scientist, AIAA Honorary Fellow and NAE member. She was a trailblazer at a time when women were not encouraged to enter the science and technology fields. The Lecture emphasizes research or engineering issues for space travel and exploration, aerospace education of students and the public, and other aerospace issues such as ensuring a diverse and robust engineering community. This biennial lecture is held at the Nationa

2024 Yvonne C. Brill Lecture & Reception

“The Evolution and Impact of Global Navigation Satellite Systems”

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) provide the basis for smart phones to guide us unquestioningly to our destinations, safe and flexible navigation for tens of thousands of airline flights per day, seamless synchronization of power grids and timing of financial transactions, AND for scientific observation of Earth’s variable gravity field, water content of soil and vegetation on its surface, and even its atmosphere and ocean surface winds. This talk will explore what we can learn from the remarkable evolution of a military navigation system into a global utility, and consider where today’s new advances in utilization of signals-of-opportunity, optical communications, atomic clocks, and quantum sensing might lead.

About the Yvonne C. Brill Lecture in Aerospace Engineering

The Yvonne C. Brill Lecture in Aerospace Engineering was established in 2013 in memory of Yvonne Brill, pioneering rocket scientist, AIAA Honorary Fellow and NAE member. She was a trailblazer at a time when women were not encouraged to enter the science and technology fields. The Lecture emphasizes research or engineering issues for space travel and exploration, aerospace education of students and the public, and other aerospace issues such as ensuring a diverse and robust engineering community. This biennial lecture is held at the National Academy of Engineering building in Washington, DC, in October.