Students
Kyle Ackermann
Graduate Research Assistant
Kyle Ackermann graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering in May of 2021. Kyle was an active member of Sigma Gamma Tau Aerospace Honorary at Ohio State where he led exam review sessions and tutored underclassmen. He joined the HORIZON group the following fall as a Ph.D student working under Phil Kreth. Kyle enjoys spending his free time playing Piano, Spikeball, and Rocket League.
Daniel Allen
Graduate Research Assistant
Daniel Allen grew up in Seymour, TN as an avid hillbilly who spent most of his free time exploring the Great Smoky Mountains National Park by camping, hiking, and swimming. His hobbies include extensively adventuring anywhere he ends up and seeing how many flips he can do after leaping off cliffs into water. He graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 2020 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Aerospace Engineering. In his time at UT, he was the Treasurer of the Gymnastics Club for three years. He is now pursuing his Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering.
Jacob Butera
Graduate Research Assistant
Jacob was raised in Biloxi, Mississippi where he graduated from Biloxi High School. He then attended Mississippi State University and graduated with a degree in Aerospace Engineering in Spring of 2021. He joined the HORIZON research group as a graduate research assistant the following summer. During his time at UTSI, Jacob will be pursuing a Master’s of Science in Aerospace Engineering. He will also be doing research on high speed flows under the direction of John Schmisseur. Jacob intends to translate this experience into a career in greater than Mach flight.
James Chism
Graduate Research Assistant
James Chism was raised in Hickory Withe, Tennessee and graduated from Mississippi State University in 2018 with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in German. He is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hiking, fishing, and hunting. His research at Mississippi State focused on long range ballistic trajectories and subsonic bullet applications in wildlife management. With Horizon, he is working on fluid-structure interactions for high-speed flows, with an emphasis on shock-boundary layer interactions. James is pursuing a Ph.D. degree and is being supervised by Phil Kreth.
Jordan Dixon
Graduate Research Assistant
Jordan Dixon graduated from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in Global Engineering Leadership. During her time there, she was an active member of their Unmanned Aerial Systems design team as well as their chapters of Sigma Gamma Tau, Tau Beta Pi, AIAA, and Women of Aerospace. Jordan joined the HORIZON team as a Master’s student in the summer of 2022 working under John Schmisseur. Her research primarily focuses on characterizing the effects of surface roughness on the boundary layer in high speed flows.
Jacob Jenkins
Graduate Research Assistant
Jacob Jenkins comes from Chattanooga, Tennessee where he received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2022. There, his research focused on CFD applications for propeller modeling on NASA’s X-57 Maxwell and other multi-propeller aircraft. His research is now shifted towards experimental studies with UTSI’s HORIZON research group, under the advisement of Phillip Kreth. He is currently pursuing a M.S. in Aerospace Engineering at UTSI. Jacob’s hobbies include fly fishing and playing guitar.
Kyle Klingaman
Graduate Research Assistant
Kyle Klingaman was raised in Lakewood, New Jersey and graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 2019 with a degree in Aerospace Technology and a minor in Mathematics. He will be attending the University of Tennessee Space Institute in Fall 2020 to pursue his Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering.
Shelby Ledbetter
Graduate Research Assistant
Shelby Ledbetter was raised in Bristol, TN and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 2022 with a degree in Aerospace Engineering with Honors. On campus, she was involved with AIAA as the organization secretary and volunteered with many groups on and off campus such as Habitat for Humanity and Leaders for Readers. Shelby previously interned with HORIZON on numerous occasions learning diagnostic tools such as Focused Laser Differential Interferometry, and Pressure Sensitive Paint Analysis. She is now pursuing a Ph.D. with the group under direction of Mark Gragston.
Lauren Lester
Graduate Research Assistant
Lauren Lester is a current Ph.D. student in the HORIZON research group at the University of Tennessee Space Institute. She received her B.S in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in December 2018 where she served on the WomEngineering Leadership Council as a student representative for the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering and was the president of the AIAA Knoxville chapter for the 2016-2017 academic year. During her time at UTSI, Lauren has utilized an extensive array of diagnostic techniques in the UTSI TALon wind tunnels focusing on diagnostic scale up to larger facilities and weather effects research. She is currently completing work on Shock Wave – Boundary layer interactions through the support of ONR with the assistance of her advisor, Phillip Kreth.
Jamison Murphree
Graduate Research Assistant
Jamison Murphree is a native of McEwen, Tennessee and completed his Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in May 2022. Jamison is currently pursuing his Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering with the HORIZON group as a Graduate Research Assistant. He is an active student member in AIAA and UCAH and is passionate about STEM outreach for future generations of engineers. His work at UTSI primarily focuses on the use of diagnostic paints to detect phenomena in high-speed flows, as well as participating in the conversion of the Mach 2 wind tunnel to Mach 3.5.
Oriana Palumbo
Graduate Research Assistant
Oriana Palumbo was raised in Fort Mill, South Carolina and earned her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in May 2022. It was here that she started undergraduate research on the integration of propulsion and airframe design for ultra-efficient aircrafts under the volAIR team. Now, after interning at UTSI’s HORIZON experimental research group in summer 2021, she continues research with HORIZON starting in the summer 2022 while pursuing a Master’s degree under John Schmisseur. She enjoys bird watching and identification in her free time.
Charles Pheng
Graduate Research Assistant
Charles Hou Pheng was originally born in Cambodia. He moved to Grenada, Mississippi in 2008 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018. Charles graduated from Grenada High School in 2018. He attended Mississippi State University and graduated in Spring 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in Mathematics. The following summer Charles joins HORIZON research group at UTSI where he pursues his master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering. His research deals with how realistic roughness conditions influence the effectiveness of aerodynamics control surface at high-speed flow, investigating the shockwave turbulence boundary layer interactions dynamics and pressure distributions on aerodynamics control surface. He is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Game Club at UTSI. Charles enjoys fishing, kayaking, bowling, and playing tennis.
Zane Shoppell
Graduate Research Assistant
Zane Shoppell was raised in White Pigeon, Michigan and graduated from the University of Kansas with a B.S. of Aerospace Engineering in 2021. Zane currently is working towards his M.S. in Aerospace Engineering under the guidance of John Schmisseur. His professional interests include high-speed aerothermodynamics, and hypersonic air-breathing propulsion systems. His personal interests include sports, video games, kayaking, movies, and competing with Daniel Allen for who tells worse puns.
Part-time students
Haley Goldston
Graduate Student
Haley Goldston is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Aerospace Engineering under the advisement of Mark Gragston. Utilizing her experience with high-speed aerothermodynamics and flow visualization diagnostics, Haley is a full time engineer at Lockheed Martin Space with the Hypersonic Engineering and Accelerated Technologies (HEAT) team. She joined HORIZON in Spring 2020 and graduated with her Master’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering under the advisement of John Schmisseur in Fall 2021. Her thesis research focused on the frangibility and mechanical performance of inlet port covers made of the material alumina for use in integrated rocket ramjet systems. Haley earned her Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee Tech University and she is a member of Society of Women Engineers (SWE), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics (UCAH.) Haley is an Air Force brat born in Lakenheath, England and spent her childhood in Biloxi, Mississippi and Harriman, Tennessee.
Stefen Lindörfer
Graduate Research Assistant
Stefen Lindorfer graduated from Purdue University in May 2014 with a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, and from UTSI in May 2017 with a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering. Stefen is currently pursuing a PhD in Aerospace Engineering while working at the Arnold Engineering Development Complex. His research interests are applied aerothermodynamics by computational methods with a focus on flow quality for wind tunnels and shock-wave/boundary layer interactions.
Stu Steen
Graduate Research Assistant
Stu was born & raised in Northern Virginia and received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from UVa in the spring of 2013. His current research is in laminar-turbulent transition, and is working on the computational design of a planar hypersonic quiet nozzle. He currently works at the Arnold Engineering Development Complex as a CFD analyst.