66th VKI Diploma Ceremony

The 66th VKI Diploma Ceremony of the Research Master in Fluid Dynamics took place at the von Karman Institute this 1st of July 2022. The ceremony started with Mr. Peter Grognard, Managing Director of the von Karman Institute who congratulated the graduates. This was followed by the speech of Dr. Bryan Wells, NATO Chief Scientist, who addressed a great speech to the students on the importance of VKI for the NATO countries. He underlined that climate changes is a major problematic for the security of future generation. A special technical presentation has then be done by Dr. Francisco Torres Herrador who completed his PhD thesis this year. He presented a unique research activity at VKI: "Developing thermal protection materials for tomorrow’s space journeys". Prof. Dr.-Ing. Reinhard NIEHUIS, Professor emeritus at the Universität der Bundeswehr München, who succeeded the research master in 1981-1982, shared his experience at the von Karman Institute with the Graduates.

The diploma distribution started with the awards. Awards and diplomas were distributed by Dr. Bryan Wells.

The Theodore von Karman Prize was attributed to André Tomás Silva Conceição CALADO for his project entitled: "CFD-Driven, Self-Calibration of Reduced Order Models for Flapping Aerodynamics". He has been also awarded the Prince Alexandre of Belgium Award for the Best Presentation and received a gift from Her Royal Highness Princess Léa of Belgium.

Marco CASTALDI was awarded the Belgian Government Prize. His project was entitled "Numerical Investigations of an Inlet Particle Separator for Helicopter and Turboprop Engines".

The Excellence in Experimental Research has been given to Lorenzo SCHENA for his project on "Control of a Wind Turbine using Machine Learning techniques" , while the Excellence in Numerical Research has been given to Paolo SCUDERI for his work on "An Implicit High-Order Hybrid-Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Magneto-Hydro Dynamics Equations".

We would like to congratulate the Graduates who received their diplomas:

with honours: Samuel AHIZI, Jan Kai BOHRER, André Tomás Silva Conceição CALADO, Marco CASTALDI, Adam CROSS, Ward HAEGEMAN, Sander HOLUM, Frederik JACOBS, Konstantinos KOTSARINIS, Francesco NERI, Giacomo PASTORINO, Lorenzo SCHENA, Paolo SCUDERI, Pietro SPEROTTO, Roemer SPREIJ, Claretta TEMPESTI, Karel VAN DEN BORRE

and

Yannick TOUZEAU has successfully defended the projet and Anthimos TSILIGIANNIS has successfully complete the courses.

Prof. Mario Carbonaro, Honorary Director and vice-president of the VKI alumni Association, addressed a speech to the graduates in the name of the alumni association and delivered the Best Collaborative Award to Rúben Diogo Silva Oliveira MEIRELES.

The dean of the VKI faculty, Prof. Jeroen van Beeck announced that the Best PhD Presentation Award of the Phd Symposium 2022 was attributed to Luca ZAMPINI for his work on "One-shot multigrid acceleration of optimisation". He also received a prize from the VKI alumni Association. the Best Poster Award was attributed to Diana Zaida FELGUEIRAS LUÍS for her work on "Magnetohydrodynamics enhanced radio blackout mitigation system for space transportation during planetary entries".

Finally, Rúben Meireles, Jan Bohrer and Marco Castaldi, representatives of the Research Master students, gave a vote of thanks to the guests. They gave a special thank to Professor Tony Arts who just retired. The representatives underlined that he inspired students with his passion for sciences and research. They warmly thanked him for the exceptional courses he teached them during the past year which they will never forget.