Student Team Selected for Next Phase of CITRIS Aviation Prize Design Contest
A team of students from the University of California, Davis, has been selected as one of four teams to compete in Phase 2 of the 2024-25 CITRIS Aviation Prize design contest by CITRIS Aviation, a multicampus research initiative of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute at the University of California.
The 2023–24 competition focused on conceptual designs for an air transportation network connecting the four CITRIS campuses — UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz. This year’s challenge builds on that design, tasking the teams to develop simulation software for an advanced air mobility system connecting all CITRIS campuses and the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.
Submissions in Phase 1 were evaluated for their creativity, feasibility and potential to address the technical and logistical challenges of intercampus air transportation.
For Phase 2, the team — comprising mechanical and aerospace engineering undergraduate students Oliver Austin, Shreya Chandra, Yemikael Dawit, Nicolas Holasek, Rachel Long and Orfeas Magoulas — will refine their proposal into a comprehensive design, with help from their advisors, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Camli Badrya, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Zhaodan Kong and Peng Wei, a postdoctoral researcher of biological and agricultural engineering.
“Our UC Davis team is very excited to participate in the competition,” Kong said. “Our vision is to use this competition as a catalyst to inspire our students to work on problems of significant societal impact, to foster collaborations with researchers from other UC campuses, and, hopefully, to promote northern California as an advanced air mobility hub.”
The team will present their final design in late spring to a panel of judges from CITRIS and the Banatao Institute, the NASA Ames Research Center and sponsoring companies and organizations. The winning presentations will be assessed on innovation, environmental impact and integration with existing transportation systems.
