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Karen Gundy-Burlet
Hi, my name is Karen Gundy-Burlet and I am the Group Lead and program manager
for the Intelligent Flight Control (IFC) program at NASA-Ames Research Center.
A flight controller is software which takes a pilot's stick and rudder movements, and converts them into control surface deflections on the airplane. In the IFC program, we develop flight controllers which take into account how a plane is actually flying and responding to its control surfaces and because of that we can make the plane fly more safely if it becomes damaged. We can even use the aircraft's engines to help control the plane in the event of an accident. We recently ran a series of piloted tests in a full-motion aircraft simulator here at Ames. We simulated different hypothetical accident scenarios, like a runaway stabilizer or a rudder failure, and have the pilots evaluate how well the flight control software helped them fly and land the plane. I got to act as co-pilot to some amazing NASA test pilots during the course of the experiment! Commercial transport aircraft are extremely safe, but adaptive flight control software could make a difference in those very rare circumstances where aircraft have become damaged in flight. The underlying algorithms are very generally, so they can potentially be used to help the disabled. My daughter and I both have insulin dependent diabetes, so I have an interest in using them to help us control our blood sugars, but there are applications in many other fields also. I started working at NASA Ames Research Center as a high-school junior under the Student Space Biology Program. High school students work with a scientist one day a week during the school year under this program. Initially I was involved in a project to develop computer graphics post-processing routines for an airfoil aerodynamics code . As I developed an understanding of basic aerodynamic phenomena and elementary numerical analysis, the work was extended to code optimization and basic algorithm development. This additional work was carried out during the summers under a fellowship Student Space Biology fellowship and as a contract employee. I worked both as a contract employee and as a co-op student for Ames while attending University of California, Berkeley for my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. My duties at Ames expanded to code development for the Transonic Navier Stokes code that was designed to compute the flowfield about arbitrary aircraft wings and later wing/fuselage configurations. My contribution to the project included boundary condition development, algorithm implementation, code integration and code validation. Ames sponsored my master's degree in aeronautical engineering at Stanford through the Honor's Co-op program. In this program, I worked part-time while attending Stanford part-time. At this time, I changed my focus at Ames to computations of unsteady multistage turbomachinery flows. I made extensive modifications to an existing two-dimensional, single-stage turbomachinery code developed by Rai. The extensions included development and implementation of new boundary conditions and flexible database management schemes as well as improvements to the algorithm. This work has resulted in a highly efficient two-dimensional code (STAGE-2) for computing the effects of rotor/stator interaction on flowfields in turbomachines with arbitrary numbers of stages. Ames sponsored my Ph.D. course work under a one-year, full-time fellowship to Stanford. The program provides the candidate with their full salary and pays their tuition while attending school full time. As a result, the candidate has a commitment to work for the government for a period of three years. My dissertation was based on my efforts to extend STAGE-2 to a full three-dimensional code (STAGE-3). STAGE-3 directly computes the full three-dimensional flowfield in an axial turbomachine including the effects of hub and casing boundary layer growth, rotor tip leakage flow, hub corner stall and rotor/stator interaction. In addition to turbomachinery code research and design, I work closely with my counterparts in industry and academia to insure that these state-of-the-art codes directly impact domestic research and design efforts. In particular, my main efforts have been focused toward investigations of multistage compressor efficiency with United Technologies Research Center, investigations of a proprietary compressor interaction. The code is expected to be released to domestic industry and academia early next year. In addition to my official duties at Ames, I have been involved in a community program aimed at helping students develop an interest in science and engineering. I have sponsored several high-school students on the Space Biology Program, training them in computer science and aeronautics. Two of these students have continued working at Ames while in college. My current student won the third prize in engineering at the International Science Fair in 1995 and will be competing in the International Science Fair again in 1996. I have also been active in the science fair working as a grand-prize judge as well as working with students to improve their projects. As a result of my efforts with the science fair, I am now a member of the board of directors. In addition, I give career day talks at local high schools and inspirational talks to other groups such as the Girl Scouts. I was featured in the AIAA/NASA video "Fast Forward the Future." This video has been distributed across the country via cassettes, NASA Select and local cable access channels to students as an inspirational tool to promote interest in science and mathematics. As a result of that video, I have been featured on the local access cable channel and have given talks at local high schools. I also participate in the "Women in Engineering" class at Ohlone college by giving a lecture on my perspective and experiences being female in an engineering field. (One of these lectures was given with my three-month-old daughter sleeping on my shoulder!) Excerpts from these lectures are being included in a book on women in engineering. I have also been honored with several awards:
Archived chats with Karen can be found at: |
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