Three doctoral students from the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering were presented with the Amelia Earhart Fellowship Award at a ceremony on September 18. Among them SimTech PhD student Karin Schlottke. She and Martina Baggio as well as Ariane Exle prevailed in a worldwide competition for one of the total of 35 fellowships and, in addition to the recognition of their scientific work, were delighted to receive prize money of $10,000 each.
The Amelia Earhart Prize is awarded annually by Zonta International, a worldwide association of working women. Zonta honors young female scientists who, like Amelia Earhart, have made pioneering contributions to aerospace technology. The prizes were presented in Stuttgart by Doris Brummer, President of the Union of German Zonta Clubs, after a video greeting had been sent by Susanne von Bassewitz, President of ZONTA International until 2020. The laudations for the prize winners were held by Professor Bernhard Weigand and Professor Sabine Klinkner, who supervise the doctoral theses.
Karin Schlottke from the Institute of Aerospace Thermodynamics (ITLR) is working in her thesis on drop evaporation as an elementary process in a combustion process. Since combustion processes play a central role in numerous technical applications, research is being conducted on their optimization. She has also applied to become the first German astronaut and has made it into the last 30 out of a number of over 400 aspirants. Besides all this, she gave birth to a child in spring 2020.
About the Amelia Earhart Fellowship Award
The Amelia Earhart Fellowship Award was created in 1938 in honor of the pilot Amelia Earhart, who in 1932 became the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a 20-hour solo flight. She used the popularity that the pilot gained through her flight records to campaign for women's rights. She helped women to obtain admission to technical universities and supported them in choosing technical professions. In her attempt to circumnavigate the earth along the equator, Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937. The Amelia Earhart Fellowship Award is intended to support the research work of young female scientists and motivate them on their further professional path. To date, 1,209 women from 73 countries have received the award.