Welcome from the Department Head

Welcome to the Penn State Department of Aerospace Engineering! As the new department head, I am excited to share with all visitors our department’s passion for aerospace engineering. This is an exciting field at an exciting time: new aircraft have the potential to change how we move people and goods in our day-to-day lives, and dramatic changes in space systems will enable our life here on Earth—and help us explore beyond our home planet.

A sampler of the challenges we are addressing includes:

• Safe, quiet, and efficient aircraft
• Machines that fly themselves
• Long-duration spaceflight missions
• Human-machine teaming in flight
• Rotors, propellers, and sustainable wind energy

Despite our small size, our faculty are internationally and nationally recognized for cutting-edge developments, particularly in vertical lift, wind energy, computational methods, aeroacoustics, aircraft icing, and intelligent systems for manned and unmanned aircraft and for spacecraft.

We offer B.S. degree and graduate degrees (M.S., M.Eng., and Ph.D.) in aerospace engineering, as well as a graduate minor in computational science and a graduate certificate in wind energy. Our tight-knit community stresses collegiality, ethics, communication skills, and leadership development within our students.

We invite you to explore our programs, faculty, and research areas. On behalf of the department’s faculty and staff, thank you for visiting our website. If you are interested in joining our school or working with us, we look forward to meeting you.

Amy Pritchett
Department Head
Professor of Aerospace Engineering
Department of Aerospace Engineering