OSTIV Prize awarded to Mark Drela

The OSTIV Prize is awarded to:

Professor Mark Drela

for the development and easy accessibility of computer software that has contributed to the design of modern sailplanes.

These codes have been used not only by the sailplane community, but also by student groups, academics, as well as by professional design teams, for decades to facilitate the aerodynamic and structural design of all types of aircraft. Included among the many tools Dr. Drela has developed is the two-dimensional airfoil analysis and design code, XFOIL, the multi-element and transonic airfoil code, MSES, and for the three-dimensional wing design, configuration development, and stability and control, the Athena Vortex Lattice code (AVL).

Professor Drela is currently the Terry J. Kohler Professor of Fluid Dynamics at the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, where he teaches aircraft design fundamentals, external aerodynamics, and fluid mechanics of boundary layers at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He joined the faculty there in January 1986.  His primary research interests are in low speed and transonic aerodynamics, design and performance of aircraft and aeromechanical devices, and computational aerodynamic design methodology.

He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and an AIAA Fellow, received the AIAA Lawrence Sperry Award in 1991, the SAE/AIAA Littlewood award in 2011. Of special interest to our organization, he participated in the Chrysalis, Monarch, and Daedalus human-powered aircraft projects at MIT, the latter setting the world record for distance (116km) and duration (4.0 hours) in 1988.  He has worked as a consultant for numerous R&D projects in aircraft, turbomachinery, bicycles, and America's Cup sailboats. Dr. Drela has been active in free-flight and radio-control model aircraft and, like many of us, since childhood.