The National Society of Black Engineers will honor NASA aeronautical engineer Laurie Marshall with the 2005 Golden Torch Award for Outstanding Woman in Technology of the Year.
Marshall was selected because of her professional achievements in the fields of science and engineering. According to the Society, the Golden Torch Awards honor “the best and brightest technology professionals in government, business and academia.”
Image Right: Laurie Marshall, aerospace engineer, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. NASA Photo: EC05-0053-1.
Marshall has participated in a number of flight research projects at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., where she has been employed for the past dozen years. Most recently she served as chief engineer for the third flight of the X-43A hypersonic vehicle in November 2004. This project validated supersonic-combustion ramjet (scramjet) propulsion technology with the research aircraft sustaining hypersonic speeds nearing Mach 10, or almost 10 times the speed of sound.
Prior to the X-43A project, Marshall was the principal investigator on the Advanced L-Probe Air Data Integration experiment flown on the NASA Dryden’s F-18 Systems Research Aircraft. The experiment used air pressure to determine angles of attack and sideslip in addition to traditional airspeed and altitude measurements. Later, she was a researcher on the Supersonic Laminar Flow Control project on an F-16XL research aircraft, and also was involved in analysis of Space Shuttle maneuvers that resulted in expanding the Shuttle’s aeronautical database.
Marshall began her NASA career in 1992 when she served an internship in the Aerodynamics Branch of NASA Dryden’s Research Engineering Directorate. She accepted a permanent position at Dryden in 1993, following graduation from the University of California at Davis with mechanical and aeronautical engineering degrees. She earned an Engineer-in-Training license in 1994, and received a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from California State University at Fresno in 1998.
A private pilot with an instrument rating, Marshall said she chose to work at NASA because she was interested in space exploration, felt the agency was always working on cutting edge research, and she wanted to work in a field that would allow her to work with aircraft and spacecraft. Marshall will receive her award at the 8th annual Golden Torch Awards ceremony in Boston on March 24 during the 31st National Society of Black Engineers convention.
-NASA-
PHOTO EDITORS: A publication-quality photograph of Laurie Marshall to support this release is available electronically on the NASA Dryden photo gallery at: http://www1.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/People/HTML/EC05-0053-1.html .
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