Miss Cynthia Koopman, a PhD student with the University's Institute of Aerospace Technologies, was recently awarded the Best Student Paper Award in Intelligent Systems at the AIAA (The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) Aviation Forum that took place in Las Vegas. 

Earlier this month (August 2024), she presented a paper on her doctoral work, titled "Towards Safe Aircraft Control with AI: Reinforcement Learning with Guardian Angels and Mischievous Gremlins".

Her award was one of 9 awards handed from around 700 student papers presented by individuals from around the world. 

The criteria of the competition are originality, clarity and, perhaps most important for us, "potential impact on practical applications with theoretical foundations".

This award is given twice a year, at the two large fora held by the AIAA annually - Scitech in January and Aviation in summer. 

Having won the same award last January 2024, also thanks to Ms Koopman, this achievement marks the second consecutive win for the University of Malta of this global award. 

"I am proud that Cynthia's performance continues to add to the international recognition UM enjoys in aeronautics and aviation", said Prof. Ing. David Zammit-Mangion.

In a recent social media post announcing her latest achievement, Ms Koopman commented that she extends her appreciation to AIAA for providing a platform to showcase innovative research.