Two assistant professors at Cal Poly were recently granted the Lockheed Martine Endowed Professorship Award, which will increase funding and accessibility to the CubeSat program.
Pauline Faure, a professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department and Maria Pantoja, an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department, each received a $25,000 award.
The award recognizes them for their contribution to the field of engineering, for enhancing teaching by introducing state-of-the-art topics in the classroom and for the way they help students advance their ideas.
The money from the award gives them the time and resources to expand their mini satellite work, but it also helps them expand other types of study.
“This is important because space is supposed to be available to all nations regardless of the hardships they might be facing,” Faure said. “Yet, space has a reputation of being inaccessible, complex and expensive.”
Pantoja and Faure said they plan on using the funds to expand their use of parallel computing to study earthquakes, Hawaii bird calls, and wine production. But Faure said the main goal is still to give students more access to the STEM program using the CubeSat tool.
CubeSats have allowed people to become more involved in space research. Several of the CubeSats developed at Cal Poly have already been launched into space.
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