CETA's Paul Slaboch, chair of the Mechanical, Aerospace, & Acoustical Engineering department, along with graduate student Isha Metha, each presented at AIAA SciTech 2026 in Orlando, Florida. AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) SciTech is the world's largest Aerospace conference with over 6,000 participants presenting the latest research, held from Jan 12–15.
Metha presented her paper, Aerodynamic Effects of Thickness on 75° Delta Wings, to a standing room only crowd at the conference. The paper was authored by Metha with another graduate student, Jagbir S. Shergill, and Slaboch as coauthors. The paper can be found here.
Slaboch presented a paper, From Turbomachinery to Takeoff: The Evolution of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Hartford, detailing the founding of the Aerospace Engineering program. That paper has been published here.
Slaboch was also a featured panelist on two different panels at the conference:
- AIAA Student Branch Faculty Advisors Best Practices
- This panel provided other faculty advisors from around the country with best practices on maintaining an active student branch.
- Modeling & Simulation in Aerospace Engineering Education
- This panel provided examples and updates about modeling and simulation within ABET accredited Aerospace Engineering programs in light of the new ABET criteria. He showcased not only work in his courses, but also that of Prof. Ivana Milanovic as she is a well-known expert in embedding simulations within standard 3-credit undergraduate courses.
Overall, it was a very successful conference.