National Institute Of Aerospace Associates

Programs: Research programduring fy17, nia's resident research staff population (at nia and on-site at larc) reached an all-time high of 59 persons. The extended research team, including university students and professors, subcontractors and consultants, combined to collaborate with langley researchers and provided more than $9m in high quality research products in support of nasa mission goals. Several staff members were recognized with individual honors during the year, including drs. Yi lin, jae-woo kim, sang-hyon chu and godfrey sauti who received the nasa exceptional technology achievement medal and dr. Li wang who was nominated for aiaa hampton roads section engineer of the year. Several nia researchers were members of teams that received nasa group achievement awards. Also noteworthy were the selections of several publications by nia researchers as "best papers" at the venues at which they were presented. University research nia continued robust relationships with both member and non-member universities. Nia funded $4. 2m in new work for research at these universities under contracts with nasa langley and other mechanisms. Visitor program in fy17 nia's visitor research program hosted 29 visiting researchers and students. Nia's visitor program successfully fosters collaboration between nia staff, nasa langley researchers, and scholars from across the globe to further research topics of mutual interest.

s. P. Langley professor research programsfy17 represented another excellent year of accomplishments for the langley professor (lap) program. A total of 25 different students were funded using lap funds during the course of the year. This included many transitions during the year and represents about 17 full-year students. 253 total students were funded through lap and external funds raised by the laps or were self-funded; however, this number is significantly increased due to the addition of prof. Mavris and prof. German of georgia tech who advise 200 graduate students. The laps also published 93 peer-reviewed publications and conference papers and published one book. They also taught 17 courses. Due to the importance of the lap program to nasa and nia, nia has also aligned the lap's research to the maximum extent possible with langley's strategic technology investment plan and product lines. Nia continues to invest further in it by providing free lab space and free lab equipment for use by the laps and nasa researchers. Nia has included the laps in our research center strategy, and each of the labs is now a part of a center that is promoted on our web site and branded through nia promotional materials. The centers are listed below: small satellite systems research center (s3rc) (dr. William edmonson, north carolina a&t ) bruel & kjaer center for aerospace acoustics (dr. Christopher fuller, virginia tech ) the center for photonics, sensors, and solar energy (dr. Mool gupta, university of virginia) the alexander brown center for adaptive aerospace technology (dr. James hubbard, university of maryland) the aerospace systems design laboratory at nia (dr. Dimitri mavris, georgia tech) the center for integrated systems health management (ishm) (dr. Fuh-gwo yuan, north carolina state)

public outreach programnia continues to strengthen public outreach programs that both educate and stimulate interest in nasa in the general population. Nasa 360 continues to be an exemplar in this area. Seventy-four new episodes were created in fy17 and the social media presence and support for the program continues to grow, with over 5. 38 million facebook friends, reaching over 229 million people. In fy17, nia produced 259 innovation now segments bringing the lifetime total to 1,583 segments to-date. Innovation now continues to be an integral component of multiple podcast networks, including tune-in, itunes, the national science foundation's science360 ipad app, and podfeed. Innovation now airs on >700 stations and has an average of 74. 3k downloads per month and reached over 13 million listeners per day.

educational outreach program - nia's educational outreach efforts remain focused on addressing the national concern of increasing interest and aptitude of k-12 students in stem, and fostering that interest into university education in stem disciplines related to the aerospace industry. While working to make stem appealing to teachers and students, particular emphasis is placed on attracting under-represented minorities and women into stem disciplines. Nia focuses on supporting learning for under-represented populations to encourage students towards graduate education, increasing the diversity of mentors and future stem educators. The collaboration with nasa in fy17 yielded many key accomplishments; namely: launch and execution of the nasa big idea challenge launch and execution of the opsparc inworld challenge launch and execution of the 9th annual rasc-al competition launch and execution of the rasc-al special edition: mars ice challenge at langley as part of larc's 100th anniversary successful development and completion of professional development (pd) strategy, instruments and training modules for a nasa train-the-trainer model supporting the nasa out of school learning (nosl) networkgraduate education program - in fy17, nia's highly diverse graduate education program featured a total of 148 students in various capacities within the nia program. These include 37 full-time in residence at nia or nasa representing the member institutions, 26 part-time likewise, 56 supported through nia working at member university home campuses and a further 29 supported through nia at non-member universities. Of these, around 8 spend significant time on-site at larc, the remaining 21 are based at their respective home campuses. Continuing education program - in fy17, nia hosted 34 seminars, 4 workshops/conferences and short courses covering a broad range of technical topics in aerospace research and engineering. A highlight of 2017 was an organized session at aiaa aviation 2017 where 7 graduate student papers were presented. Institute operations - fy17 saw continued growth in both the laboratory facility and peninsula technology incubator (pti) management. Throughout the year, both the lab and pti expanded to include new customers/tenants all in furthering nias research mission. As a part of the continuing evolution of pti, nia has re-branded pti as the reaktor tech business innovation center ("reaktor"). In addition to performing incubation services, business acceleration and tech commercialization, reaktor will focus on uas and other uas-related technologies of interest to nia.