Amy Sprague
July 24, 2026
From harvesting power on the lunar surface and stabilizing fusion plasmas to origami-inspired spacecraft, bioinspired sensors, and safer planetary landings, the poster presentations at A&A’s SHARC Week’s Main Event showed the department's commitment to tackling challenges across space, air, and beyond.
Three awards for poster presentations recognized the strongest work from this year's showcase, each honoring one undergraduate and one graduate researcher.
Fundamental discovery
Adelina Hengyucius
Undergraduate | Correlation between Resistive Decay and Geometry of the Separatrix of a Field Reversed Configuration
The stability of fusion plasma is often a matter of geometry. Adelina Hengyucius earned recognition for her work uncovering how the shape of a field-reversed configuration (FRC) determines its behavior.
Her research investigates how the "shape index" and elongation of a plasma configuration affect its susceptibility to instabilities like tilting and tearing. By developing a Grad-Shafranov equilibrium solver, Hengyucius can model and predict plasma behavior with greater accuracy, aligning with experimental results that show why elongated configurations are more stable.
Working with Jeffrey Contri and Professor Bhuvana Srinivasan in the Plasmawise Lab, Hengyucius is identifying simpler magnetic geometries for fusion applications that could enable higher power densities while potentially reducing neutron radiation, helping unlock the secrets of stable plasma for future clean energy.
Arvindh Sharma
Graduate | Numerical and Experimental Study of Lunar Mini-Magnetosphere Physics for Power Extraction
To establish a lasting presence on the Moon, we need low-cost power we can harvest right there on the lunar surface. Arvindh Sharma earned recognition for his research on tapping into a natural phenomenon on the Moon for power generation.
Lunar mini-magnetospheres, small magnetic field structures on the Moon's surface, naturally capture roughly 100 megawatts of power from the solar wind. Sharma's project proposes a Mini-Magnetosphere Power Generator (MMPG) that uses a hollow cathode to amplify current draw and extract this energy directly from the environment. Working with Patrick Rae and Jan Deca under Professor Justin Little, Sharma uses kinetic modeling to optimize electrode placement relative to solar wind speed and is developing a system that can operate throughout the lunar day despite changing wind angles.
This approach to in situ resource utilization (ISRU) could provide a critical power source for future lunar colonies.
Read more about this research in recent A&A feature story: Extracting electricity from the Moon's magnetic fields.
Applied innovation
Mark Platonov
Undergraduate People's Choice winner | Structural Health Monitoring of Metamaterials
Metamaterials offer extraordinary engineered properties like acoustic wave attenuation, but their complexity creates a serious challenge: how do you monitor their structural health when they scatter waves in ways traditional models can't predict?
Mark Platonov earned recognition for developing a framework that uses Green's functions and gradient-based optimization to locate and quantify internal damage in metamaterials, without resorting to expensive brute-force searches. His approach achieves damage localization 31 percent faster than standard search methods, and it proves more robust and scalable than deep learning approaches, which can fail when confronted with damage patterns outside their training data.
This work, with Professor Charlie Dorn, builds a foundation for real-time monitoring of engineered materials, important for industry adoption of metamaterials in demanding applications like reusable rocketry.
Justin Chang
Graduate | Origami and Control Systems
Reconfigurable structures are changing the way we think about vehicle design. Origami techniques allow spacecraft to deploy massive solar arrays and drones to change shape mid-flight to maneuver through tight obstacles, but controlling these complex folding structures in real time remains a major challenge.
Justin Chang earned recognition for bridging that gap. Working with Professors Mehran Mesbahi and Ran Dai (Purdue), Chang is developing efficient mathematical models to make active, real-time control of origami systems possible.
His research is expected to increase the flight efficiency of reconfigurable quadcopters, enable CubeSats to control their attitude using self-deployable wings, and provide a foundation for robust controllers that can operate in extreme aerospace environments.
Scientific communication
Lela Corson
Undergraduate, Comparison of Kinetic and a Novel Hybrid-Kinetic Scheme for Simulating Plasma Transport & Sheaths
Understanding plasma dynamics is critical for fusion energy, but fully kinetic simulations are notoriously computationally expensive. Lela Corson earned recognition for her communication of a novel hybrid-kinetic method (PKPM) that dramatically reduces that cost.
Working with team members John Rodman, Vignesh Krishna Kumar, and Jimmy Juno under Professor Bhuvana Srinivasan in the Plasmawise Lab, Corson's approach applies kinetic methods only where they are truly needed, parallel to magnetic field lines, while treating the rest of the system more efficiently. The result captures complex plasma dynamics at a fraction of the computational cost, achieving kinetic-like results faster on a single CPU than standard models running on a GPU.
By enabling more frequent and detailed studies of plasma sheaths and heat flow, this work supports progress toward abundant clean energy and advanced space propulsion and plasma physics more computationally accessible to researchers everywhere.
Collins S. Davis
Graduate People's Choice winner | Physical and Computational Investigations into the Behavior of Discontinuous Composite Structures
Composite materials are aerospace staples, but their behavior changes fundamentally when they are molded into complex shapes. Collins Davis earned recognition for communicating the fracture behavior of discontinuous fiber composites (DFCs). Unlike traditional composites, DFCs can be molded into intricate 3D geometries.
Davis examined Sekisui brackets as a good DFC example to understand how platelet morphology and fiber orientation affect strength and failure. His investigations revealed that narrow platelets vastly outperform square ones in tensile strength. Using Micro-CT scanning, he mapped internal fiber alignment, information that is critical for predicting failure, and developed modified damage models incorporating crack band theory for more accurate simulations.
Working with team members Troy Nakagawa, Greesh Varthan, William Avery, Scott James, and Anthony Barrington Brown under Professor Marco Salviato, Davis is advancing our understanding of the materials that will build tomorrow's aircraft.