Aviation Week Presents The 2024 Grand Laureate Award Winners
Nearly 400 aerospace luminaries from around the world filled the historic National Building Museum in Washington on March 14 for Aviation Week’s 66th Annual Laureate Awards. Continuing a tradition dating back to 1957, Aviation Week editors honored accomplishments that included a hydrogen-electric-powered aircraft, a mission that collected samples from an asteroid and brought them to Earth, innovative advances in predictive maintenance and the first testing of synthetic artificial intelligence pilots in a supersonic aircraft. Grand Laureates—the best of the best—were announced in five categories: defense, commercial aviation, business aviation, space and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO).
Editors also honored two Lifetime Achievement winners and the first Pathfinder Award recipient. The sold-out event was capped off with an eye to the future as Aviation Week Network President Greg Hamilton and Accenture Aerospace and Defense leader and Senior Managing Director John Schmidt were joined onstage by two dozen top students and military cadets pursuing aviation or aerospace careers.
2024 Laureate Winners
SPACE
Firefly Aerospace and Millennium Space Systems Victus Nox
Indian Space Research Organization Chandrayaan-3
SpaceX Starlink
Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic, for leadership
Grand Laureate: NASA/Lockheed Martin Osiris-Rex
DEFENSE
Saab Gripen E
Nammo THOR-ER
X-62A VISTA
Western missile integration for Ukraine
Eren Ozmen, Sierra Nevada Corp., for leadership
Grand Laureate: Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider
Business Aviation
Dassault Aviation FalconWays
NBAA Sustainable Flight Department Accreditation
SmartSky Networks
Barrington Irving, for leadership
Grand Laureate: GAMA Electric Propulsion and Innovation Committee
Commercial Aviation
French air accident investigation office BEA
Rolls-Royce UltraFan
American Airlines HEAT
Guliz Ozturk, Pegasus Airlines, for leadership
Grand Laureate: Universal Hydrogen
MRO
AAR
GE Aerospace
Lufthansa Technik
SR Technics, Atlas Air and Kuehne+Nagel
Grand Laureate: Delta TechOps
Pathfinder
Luis Carlos Affonso, Embraer senior vice president of engineering and technology development and Eve Holding board chairman
Lifetime Achievement
Daniel S. Goldin, longest-serving NASA administrator
Clay Lacy, business jet charter pioneer
Space
Business Aviation
Defense
Commercial Aviation
MRO
Pathfinder Award
Philip J. Klass Lifetime Achievement Awards
Tomorrow’s Leaders
Midshipman 1st Class Dorian Williams, majoring in aerospace engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA). An active member of the 14th Company who served as a platoon commander and as the company supply officer, Williams participates in company intramurals and is vice president of USNA’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics branch. He is the team lead for a small-satellite attitude control integration and testing project. He will be commissioned in May as a Navy pilot.
Cadet 1st Class Timothy Roy Smith, majoring in astronautical engineering at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He performs research on cislunar trajectory optimization for the NASA Artemis program and published his findings at the 2024 American Astronautical Society Colorado Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference. Smith worked on the FalconSAT-X small satellite with the Space Systems Research Center and led the academy’s Blue Horizon Rocketry propulsion team. He is a glider instructor pilot at the academy’s 94th Flying Training Sqdn. and serves as the 4th Group Cadet Commander responsible for 1,000 cadets.
Cadet 3/c Giselle Melinda Johnson, majoring in cybersystems at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (USCGA). She is a member of the USCGA varsity women’s crew team and flight team and is a Redbird flight simulator instructor. She earned her private pilot license when she was in high school and joined the Coast Guard for its humanitarian mission. Last summer, she worked aboard the USCGC Midgett in Honolulu. After graduating, she intends to attend flight school to pilot MH-65D/E Dolphins and pursue the Coast Guard’s search-and-rescue mission.
Cadet Lt. Gunar Daniels, majoring in mechanical engineering with a focus in aeronautical engineering and a minor in Russian at the U.S. Military Academy. He is part of a capstone team designing a payload that adjusts its center of gravity in flight to assist flight control research on uncrewed aircraft systems. Daniels studied the Russian language and taught elementary students medical skills in Armenia. He completed the Army Air Assault School, was an exchange student at the USNA and, last semester, commander of his company of approximately 117 other cadets. He will be commissioned as an Army aviation officer after graduating in May. Credit: Chris Zimmer Photography
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