Student Paper Competitions

Please direct questions to:
Cliff Brown, NASA GRC

Award Name

Best Student Paper in Aeroacoustics

Undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to submit papers to the Aeroacoustics Student Paper Competition by selecting “Student Paper Competition” presentation type when uploading abstracts.

Eligibility Requirements & Other Rules

Student papers should report on thesis-related work conducted in collaboration with faculty advisors. The primary author must have been a student in May 2027 and must present the paper.  If students at Aviation or the Aeroacoustics conference decide not to participate in the student paper competition, they will be considered for the AIAA/CEAS best paper award instead.

Selection Criteria:

The award will be based on the technical quality of the paper and the clarity of the presentation. The winning student will receive a monetary award and certificate.

Please direct questions to:
Max Li, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Min Xue, NASA Ames Research Center

Award Name

Neil Y. Chen Memorial Best Student Paper Award

The best student award in air transportation systems recognizes the best student paper each year in the air transportation system technical discipline at the AIAA Aviation. The authors who want their papers to be considered for this award should select the best student paper option during submission. The full papers will be evaluated by the AIAA requirements and our technical committeeselection criteria. The authors (finalists) of the  3-5 candidate papers will be invited to give their presentations in the same session. The award will be announced at the AIAA Aviation.

Section Criteria

Significance of contribution (20%), Structure of paper (10%), Writing quality (10%), Appropriateness of the approach (20%), Clarity of drawings, graphs, and tables (10%), Appropriateness of abstract (10%), Quality of discussion and conclusions (10%), Adequacy of references and discussion of prior work (10%)

Please direct questions to:
Reza Djeddi, Cadence Design Systems

Award Name

Applied Aerodynamics Student Paper Competition

The Applied Aerodynamics Technical Committee is sponsoring the APA Student Paper Competition. Eligible written papers will be judged by members of the APATC Education Subcommittee for the “Best Paper” award. The winner of the “Best Paper” award will be notified before the conference and will receive a certificate (presented during the AVIATION Plenary session) and a $1000 award.

Additionally, there will be a “Best Presentation” award with a cash prize of $500 awarded to the student with the best presentation. This will be based on the final work presented at the APATC Student Paper Competition technical session during the AVIATION conference.

Eligibility Requirements & Other Rules:

Authorship: To be eligible, the student needs to be full-time at either the graduate or undergraduate level. Students are encouraged to submit extended abstracts that are as close as possible to the anticipated final paper. Student papers should report on work primarily conducted by students in collaboration with their faculty advisors; therefore, all primary/presenting authors of papers submitted for consideration in the Student Paper Competition must be students at the time of abstract submission. The first author of the paper must remain the same between the abstract, final paper, and presentation. Up to two non-student co-authors are allowed.

Presentation: At conference, the presentation must be given by the primary author of the paper otherwise the paper will be disqualified from the competition.

Extended Abstract: Student abstracts must be extended abstracts that follow the rules outlined in this Call for Papers. When submitting to the abstract submission website, select “Student Paper Competition” as the paper type.

Selection Criteria:

Final papers will be judged based upon the importance of the work, originality, quality, and completeness. Detailed criteria for selecting the “Best Paper” are outlined below:

• Originality of the work
• Relevance to the field of Applied Aerodynamics
• Technical quality and completeness of the work
• Clarity and style consistent with AIAA paper guidelines

For the “Best Paper” award, submissions will only be judged based on the written work and not the oral presentation. On the other hand, for the “Best Presentation” award, judges will select the paper solely based on the oral presentation at the conference.

Please note that the Best Paper and Best Presentation awards are judged independently. A single entry may be selected for both awards if it demonstrates excellence in both the written paper and the oral presentation.

Please direct questions to:
Charlie Zheng, Utah State University
Tadas Bartkus, Ohio Aerospace Institute / NASA GRC

Award Name

Atmospheric and Space Environments Student Paper Competition

Undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to submit papers for consideration in the Atmospheric and Space Environments Student Paper Competition. Entries to the Student Paper Competition will be presented in regular technical sessions with other papers in their topic area and archived as AIAA papers.

Eligibility Requirements & Other Rules:

To be eligible for this award, the student must be an AIAA member or student member, the primary author of the paper, and in attendance at the conference to present the paper. In addition, all work must have been performed while the author was a student.

Selection Criteria:

The written papers will be judged based on the following criteria: (1) originality (is the work original, or is it something that has been addressed in the past); (2) technical quality (appropriate level of technicality and free of errors); (3) organization, completeness, grammar and usage (style and clarity); (4) literature review/acknowledgement of prior work and explanation of the relevance to the work presented in the paper; (5) accuracy of experimental or numerical results (ref. AIAA standards for journals); (6) importance/contribution to field. The student author of the best paper will receive a certificate and a cash award after the conference.

Please direct questions to:
Krishna Sampigethaya, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Award Name

Best Student Paper Award in Aviation and Aerospace Cybersecurity

The best student award in aviation and aerospace cybersecurity recognizes the best student paper each year in the aviation cybersecurity technical discipline at the AIAA Aviation. The authors who want their papers to be considered for this award should select the best student paper option during submission. The full papers will be evaluated by the AIAA requirements and our technical committee selection criteria. The authors (finalists) of the 3-5 candidate papers will be invited to give their presentations in the same session. The award will be announced at the AIAA AVIATION.

Eligibility Requirements & Other Rules:

To be eligible for this award, the student must be an AIAA member or student member, the primary author of the paper, and in attendance at the conference to present the paper. In addition, all work must have been performed while the author was a student.

Selection Criteria:

The written papers will be judged based on the following criteria: (1) originality (is the work original, or is it something that has been addressed in the past); (2) technical quality (appropriate level of technicality and free of errors); (3) organization, completeness, grammar and usage (style and clarity); (4) literature review/acknowledgement of prior work and explanation of the relevance to the work presented in the paper; (5) accuracy of experimental or numerical results (ref. AIAA standards for journals); (6) importance/contribution to field. The student author of the best paper will receive a certificate after the conference.

Please direct questions to:
Anne-Marie Schreyer, München University of Applied Sciences

Award Name

AIAA Fluid Dynamics (FD) Student Paper Competition

The AIAA Fluid Dynamics (FD) Student Paper Competition provides students the opportunity to share their research findings. Participation is open to all full-time undergraduate and graduate students pursuing a degree in an engineering or scientific discipline at an accredited college or university.

A cash prize of $300 will be awarded to the first-place winner, $200 to the second place, and $100 to the third place. Awards are based on a combination of the extended abstract, the final conference paper, and the presentation. The judges will use the extended abstracts to initially screen the competition entries. Further details of the eligibility and requirements for the submission and the judging criteria are provided below.

The competition results will be announced after the conference and checks will be mailed to the winners. All submissions must meet the deadlines for the conference given in the general information section of this Call for Papers. During the submission, please indicate that the paper is a Student Paper Competition Entry on the title page.

Papers submitted to the FD Student Paper Competition will be presented in regular technical sessions with others papers in the relevant topic area. Also, Student Paper Competition manuscripts will be treated as regular AIAA conference papers in the conference proceedings and will be archived as AIAA papers.

Selection Criteria:

Criteria for judging include:

• The work’s importance in advancing the state of the art
• The technical approach
• Rationale for the work
• Sufficient and consistent results
• Verification and validation
• Style, clarity, and format of the paper and presentation

Please direct questions to:
Jinho Lee, NASA GRC

Award Name

HSABP Best Student Paper Award

This award will be given to a paper where lead authors are students enrolled in either an undergraduate or a graduate program. One award per year will be given with nominations selected from both Aviation and SciTech forums.

Selection Criteria:

Same as AIAA.

Please direct questions to:
Mary Catharine Martin, Georgia Tech Research Institute
Jennifer Klenka, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics

Award Name

Modeling and Simulation Technologies Best Student Paper Award

The AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies Best Student Paper Award recognizes the best paper and presentation by a university student at the 2027 Aviation and Aeronautics Forum and Exposition on the topic of modeling and simulation.

Selection Criteria:

Student papers will be organized in special session(s), attended and assessed by members of the Modeling & Simulation Technical Committee attending the conference.  Committee members will qualitatively assess presentations using a numerical scale based on Technical Content, Use of Media, Delivery Style, and Organizational flow.  A minimum of 4 and maximum of 6 papers will be selected for the competition. The same committee members will also review final full manuscripts based on Technical Content, Originality, Practical Application, and Style & Form. Presentation and manuscript scores from individual committee members will be aggregated together to determine which paper earned the highest score to be awarded the best student paper.

Please direct questions to:
Seongim Choi, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST)
John Hwang, UC San Diego

Award Name

Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Student Paper Competition

The MDO Student Paper Competition, sponsored by Airbus, encourages undergraduate and graduate students to submit papers on the technical topics listed in this call for papers. Co-authored papers are welcome; however, the first author must be an AIAA member and a registered student at the time of final paper submission. The student must have played the primary role in the research, technical development, and writing of the paper.

When submitting an abstract, authors must select “Student Paper Competition” under the “Presentation Type” drop-down menu on the submission website and choose the topic “Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization”. This ensures the abstract is routed correctly to the MDO topic.

Students will be notified of abstract acceptance alongside regular paper notifications. Shortlist outcomes will be announced approximately two weeks after the final paper submission deadline. Selected finalists will present their papers in person on the first day of the AVIATION Forum (in addition to their scheduled technical presentation).

Eligibility Requirements & Other Rules

The abstract submission and review processes follow the standard conference guidelines. Students must strictly adhere to the full manuscript submission deadline to remain eligible; requesting an extension will result in removal from the competition. Upon final manuscript submission, students must report the individual contributions of each listed co-author to the Student Paper Competition Chair. Only papers that clearly demonstrate the student’s primary contribution (in terms of originality and technical content) will be considered.

Selection Criteria:

Each finalist will be evaluated by expert reviewers based on both their paper and presentation. The judging criteria are:

1. Technical Merit: Originality, technical quality, and significance to the field
2. Presentation: Visualization, delivery, content, and pacing
3. Paper Organization: Clarity of research objectives and overall structure

A soft limit of 5,000 words will be enforced (excluding abstract, figures, captions, and references), with judges retaining discretion on whether exceeding the limit adds meaningful value.

The first-place prize is $2,000, and the runner-up prize is $1,000.

Please direct questions to:
James Creel, Texas A&M

Award Name

Plasmadynamics and Lasers Student Paper Competition

The Plasmadynamics and Lasers (PDL) Technical Committee invites students to participate in the PDL Student Paper Competition at AIAA Aviation 2027. This competition provides a unique opportunity for students to showcase their original research in plasmadynamics, lasers, and related aerospace applications.  We encourage submissions across the full spectrum of PDL topics, including plasma-assisted combustion, plasma-based flow control, laser diagnostics, computational modeling, space plasmas, high-energy lasers, and emerging applications such as AI/ML-driven approaches.

Please direct questions to:
Naseem Saiyed, NASA
Tarek Abdel-Salam, East Carolina University
Elias Waddington

Award Name

SIOS Student Best Paper Award

The Sustainability Integration and Outreach Committee (SIOC) will present this award to the best student paper. Submissions will be evaluated based on the following criteria: Contribution to the field, relevance to SIOC, archival value, and overall merit.

Selection Criteria:

Submissions will be evaluated based on the following criteria: Contribution to the field, relevance to SIOC, archival value, and overall merit

Please direct questions to:
Srikanth Gururajan, Saint Louis University
Anaiya Reliford, Howard University

Award Name

Best Paper in Uncrewed and Autonomous Systems

Single paper awarded based on technical discipline selection criteria below.

Eligibility Requirements & Other Rules

Must be submitted/presented under any of the Uncrewed and Autonomous Systems topics.

Selection Criteria:

• Scope & significance of contribution
• Originality and technical rigor
• impact on the domain of unmanned systems
• Relevance: UAS design, modeling, simulation, flight testing, systems optimization and integration, and implementation of technologies for the advancement of the unmanned systems

Please direct questions to:
Kranthi Kumar Deveerasetty. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Atanu Halder, Oklahoma State University

Award Name

V/STOL Aircraft Systems Student Paper Competition

The V/STOL Aircraft Systems Technical Committee sponsors its Student Paper competition at Aviation.  The students will present their works in the V/STOL Technical Sessions at Aviation.

The V/STOL Technical Committee awards a cash prize of $500 to the author of its Best Student Paper.

Eligibility Requirements & Other Rules

A student entry must submit their paper to the V/STOL Technical Discipline and may not compete with the same paper in multiple competitions.

Selection Criteria:

V/STOL Technical Committee’s Awards judges will evaluate each student’s final conference paper and conference presentation based on four criteria:

1. Originality and creativity
2. Technical content and quality
3. Relevance to V/STOL
4. Organization and Clarity

The judges will assess the “relevance” relative to the V/STOL Call for Papers. They assess “organization” partly by the paper’s conformity to the AIAA Aviation Forum Manuscript Template and the presentation’s effective use of time and “clarity” by the coherence and intelligibility of the paper and presentation.