Dear members,

WIA-E is pleased to announce the 2017 WIA-E grant winners:

• Rita Neves

Rita is a PhD student in Aerospace Engineering at Cranfield University, in the UK. She is a member of WIA Europe, and used her grant to present her research at the International Astronautical Conference (IAC): ‘Asteroid Capture Missions for Unattainable Targets using Earth-Resonant Encounters‘.

• Helia Sharif

Helia holds a B. A. Sc. in Systems Engineering from Simon Fraser University and a M. A. Sc. in Aerospace Engineering from Carleton University in Canada. Additionally, she has completed the Space Studies Program at the International Space University in Austria.

Her passion for space and robotics has lead her to pursue a number of exciting and unique opportunities ranging from camping in the Arctic while working for NASA, to developing image processing algorithm at the Advanced Concepts Team in the European Space Agency, and for Canadian Space Agency’s micro-rover: Kapvik.

Now in Bremen, she’s pursuing a doctoral thesis research degree funded by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to train satellites become smarter. She’s responsible for the design of an autonomous vision-based system onboard aerial vehicles to help in guidance and navigation maneuvers in real-time.

Congratulations to both!