Laura Talbot Seidensticker Aerospace Engineering Scholarship
Iowa State University Department of Aerospace Engineering senior Grace Rensing has benefited from this new scholarship offered by Seidensticker, who received a B.A. in aerospace engineering in 1989. Seidensticker’s new career soon took her to NASA at the Johnson Space Center, working for the Mission Operations Directorate for the Space Shuttle program. She has since become chief technology officer and co-founder of Vital Proteins, which manufactures wellness products. Seidensticker has established the scholarship to help female students advance in the field of engineering. Rensing says the scholarship has helped her in her quest to look into astronautics or possibly wind energy as a career. Read more about the scholarship’s impact on Rensing.
Read more about Seidensticker’s gift and how it will also include updates to the department’s Spaceflight Simulation Laboratory, which houses the neutral buoyancy tank used to simulate a gravity-free space environment.
Vincent M. Pollmeier Memorial Scholarship
Another new undergraduate scholarship in the Department of Aerospace Engineering has also been awarded. Kayla Oftedahl, an aerospace engineering freshman, is the recipient of the Vincent M. Pollmeier Memorial Scholarship. The four-year scholarship has been established in memory of department alumnus Vincent M. Pollmeier, who received a B.A. in aerospace engineering in 1986.
The donors of the scholarship are Iowa State alumni Richard (electrical engineering, ’86) and Barbara Bahning Chin (graphic design, ’90) who became friends with Pollmeier during their time as Iowa State undergrads. Pollmeier passed away in 2000 after a long career working for the University of Texas Center for Space Research, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and finally as an attorney specializing in litigation involving high-tech patent claims. Read more about the establishment of the Pollmeier scholarship.