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The University of Southampton
Engineering

Prestigious international Fellowships for four Southampton PhD aerospace researchers

Published: 21 June 2016
Eda Dogan, Francesca Letizia and An
Eda Dogan, Francesca Letizia and Angeliki Laskari

Postgraduate researcher in Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics, Angeliki Laskari, is flying high after receiving a prestigious Amelia Earhart Fellowship. She is the fourth female Engineering PhD student at Southampton to be honoured by Zonta International in the last three years, only 35 awards are made annually.

“It’s very encouraging to be recognised for our achievements while pursuing a PhD,” says Angeliki , who will use the money to help finance her fourth year in research. “Both my supervisors recommended I apply. Another student in our group, Eda, had been recognised the previous year and her success motivated me to try as well. I was away in Germany when I found out that I had got the Fellowship, and was really pleased.” She chose the University of Southampton after her first degree in naval architecture in Athens because of the opportunity to do fundamental research in turbulent boundary layers with Professor Bharathram Ganapathisubramani and intends to work in industry after graduation.

Eda Dogan and Natalia Ortiz Gómez won Fellowships in 2015 and Francesca Letizia received the award in 2013.

Eda is also studying turbulent boundary layers for her PhD and plans to stay in academic research after graduating. “The fellowship enabled me to pursue my research goals for an extra year and to present it in an international conference.”

Space debris is Natalia’s PhD subject. Engineers are working on ways of removing these objects left behind from rockets and satellites but need to step them rotating at high speed as they orbit the Earth. Her research involves investigating how to stop them spinning so they can be captured by a net, harpoon or robotic arm. “Studying at Southampton has been a very enriching experience both personally and professionally and I appreciated winning the Amelia Earhart Fellowship.”

Francesca is researching how to predict the orbit of pieces of space debris less than 10cm in size that are not currently tracked. “I found the Fellowship money invaluable to finance an internship at the European Space Agency in Germany and also to pay for me to go to several conferences.”

Each year Zonta International presents 10,000 US dollars to 35 talented women postgraduate students around the world who have impressive academic credentials in aerospace-related science and engineering. The Fellowship is named after the first female aviator to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

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