FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 9, 2025 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is pleased to announce the winners from the 2025 Region VII Student Conference, hosted at the University of Sydney, 1–2 December, both in person and virtually. The papers presented at the conference will be published by AIAA and available on Aerospace Research Center (ARC) at the beginning of 2026.
Attendees presented 54 papers and represented 23 schools. The conference had a strong international presence with students from nine countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
“We are thrilled to see our student members in action during student conferences. It’s vital for university students to gain practical experience presenting their research findings and receiving valuable feedback from aerospace professionals,” said AIAA CEO Clay Mowry. “We look forward to seeing these students shape the future of aerospace!”
For the undergraduate, graduate, and team categories, first-place winners received a cash prize of $500, second-place winners received a cash prize of $300, and third place received $250. The high school students received $100 for first place, $75 for second place, and $50 for third place.
AIAA student conferences give students an opportunity to present and publish their work in front of their peers and members of the industry. The AIAA Foundation sponsors student conferences in all seven AIAA regions each year. The Regional Student Conferences for Regions I-VI will take place in spring 2026.
2025 AIAA Region VII Student Conference Paper Winners
High School Category
- 1st Place: Avighna Daruka, Krish Agrawal, and Ankit Bansal, Oslo International School, Norway, “CFD Analysis of Near-Field Exhaust Thermodynamics in Hydrogen-Fueled Jet Engines and Their Implications for Contrail Formation”
- 2nd Place: Arif Emre Özden, Private Beştepe High School, Turkey, “Simulating Defect-Induced Local Modes and Phonon Dispersion in Two-Dimensional Materials with DFT”
- 3rd Place: Helin Uluğtürken, Saint Michel French High School, Turkey, “Airfoil Performance Analysis: NACA 2412 vs 0012”
Undergraduate Category
- 1st Place: Jordan Whittaker and Con Doolan, University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia, “Parametric Aerodynamic Study of the Properties of Leading-Edge Serrations on Wing Sections”
- 2nd Place: Girisha Puri, University of Sydney, Australia, “Numerical and Experimental Investigation of a Passive Mixing Device in a Flight-Scale Hybrid Rocket Engine”
- 3rd Place: Ishpreet Singh, University of New South Wales Canberra, Australian Defence Force Academy, Australia, “Flush Air Data System for a Blunt Wedge in Hypersonic Flow”
Graduate Category
- 1st Place Tie: Seonghyeon Park, Seungshin Lee, and Jinyoung Suk, Chungnam National University, Republic of Korea, “Design and Experimental Validation of a Kalman Filter-based Double-Loop INDI Architecture for Robust Control of Multicopter UAVs”
- 1st Place Tie: Vidit Bawa and Quentin Michalski, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, “An Experimental Framework for In-Flight Determination of Rocket Aerodynamic Drag”
- 3rd Place: Nicoleta Railean, Fatime, Kuci, and Paul Kantzidis, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, “Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Small Ducted Propellers in Ground Effect”
Team Category
- 1st Place: Allan Dong, Raymond Trinh, Xinwei Choot, and Benjamin Seow, University of Sydney, Australia, “Large Language Model-Enabled Multimodal UAV for Rescue”
- 2nd Place Tie: Fei Fei Liu Webster, Giulia Mandarano, Karunakalage Dasitha Manulindu Karunaratne, and Abdulghani Mohamed, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, “Investigation of Passively Variable Pitch Blades with Ranging Pivot Locations on Rotor Load Imbalance”
- 2nd Place Tie: Jolok Banarjee, Holyjith Paul Himel, Toymor Wafi Opul, MD Shajidul Islam Patwary, Tuhin Alahi Anny, and Shahrukh Khan, Aviation and Aerospace University, Bangladesh, “Sustainable Additive Manufacturing Using Recycle PET: Machine Development and Mechanical Evaluation”
- 3rd Place: Mahi Uddin Ahmaad, Ashiquzzaman Sadi, Jolok Banarjee, Md Ahad Israq, and Saifur Rahman Bakaul, Aviation and Aerospace University, Bangladesh, “Structural Analysis and Material Selection for Wing of a Newly Designed Supersonic Fighter Aircraft”
Media Contact: Rebecca B. Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270 cell
About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit www.aiaa.org, or follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
