Eleonora Botta named Young Professional of the Year

By Elizabeth Egan 

Recipients must be under the age of 35 and are considered based on professional achievements, background, experience, education credentials and community involvement. Botta was nominated for the award by John Crassidis, A SUNY Distinguished Professor and Moog Professor of Innovation in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

"We are excited that Dr. Botta was chosen to be awarded the first-ever American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Niagara Frontier Section Young Professional of the Year Award,” said Crassidis. “She is a rising star in the field of space debris removal. Her work is essential to ensure that future space missions will be safe from dangerous collisions that could jeopardize vital science research and missions to the Moon and beyond." 

In his nomination, Crassidis stressed the significance of Botta’s research, which has a primary focus on mitigating the effects of space debris through space debris capture with tethered nets. Left unaddressed, space debris can damage satellites and spacecrafts and threaten human life in the case of crewed spacecrafts. Botta’s work has made important strides in understanding the dynamics of tethered net captures for debris removal. A paper she wrote titled, “Contact Dynamics Modeling and Simulation of Tether-Nets for Space Debris Capture,” published in the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics (JGCD) in 2017, was the first of its kind to lay the groundwork for multiple contact events that are expected to occur during the capture phase with a tether-net, which could lead to better designs of nets to realistically capture debris.

“I am honored to be the first recipient of the Young Professional Award,” said Botta, an active member of the society who currently serves as the chair of the AIAA Space Tethers technical committee. “I especially want to thank John for taking the time to nominate me and the PhD students from the UB Space System Dynamics and Control Lab for coming to the award ceremony!"

Botta has also received the University at Buffalo’s 2024 Mrs. Meyerson Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Early Career Teacher of the Year Award in 2023, and the Outstanding Teaching Assistant award from McGill University in 2018. She has received two National Science Foundation grants as principal investigator, and she has published 15 journal papers and 32 conference papers.

In 2019, Botta came to UB from McGill University where she was a postdoctoral fellow. She earned her PhD in mechanical engineering from McGill University in 2017 and received her master’s degree in space engineering and bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Politecnico di Milano in 2013 and 2010 respectively.

With the award, Botta will receive two years of AAIA membership, and she was honored at the Niagara Frontier Aviation and Space Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on May 10^th.