Dear AeroAstro Community,

As the semester draws to a close, it feels as though the past three months have gone by in a blur! I am proud of all we were able to accomplish in a short period of time. We wrapped up our Strategic Planning committee meetings, and will spend the next few weeks polishing the language and formalizing the implementation plans to begin making progress towards our exciting future. I would like to extend a thank you to the staff and faculty members who joined me on the Strategic Planning committee: Florian Allroggen , Hamsa Balakrishnan , Steven Barrett , Kerri Cahoy , Luca Carlone , Sara Cody , Oli de Weck , Pam Fradkin , Ed Greitzer , Jon How , Sertac Karaman , Joyce Light , Paulo Lozano , Fran Marrone , Youssef Marzouk , Dava Newman , Denise Phillips , Kate Reynolds , and Julie Shah . Grateful thanks also go to our senior advisors, Ed Crawley , Alan Epstein , Jaime Peraire , Sheila Widnall , and Larry Young .

With the holiday season upon us, our Department has hosted two major community-building events. On Nov. 27, we came together for the first Thankful Gathering dinner with more than 80 graduate students, postdocs, faculty, staff, and researchers in attendance. The day was full of engaged conversation, laughter, stories, music, great food, and thankful notes of gratitude. We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with one staff member noting “it was great to be able to connect with so many colleagues and students in such a relaxed (and delicious) way.” I want to extend a special thanks to Denise Phillips for organizing the event.

Last Friday, Dec. 6, we hosted our annual AeroAstro Holiday Party in the High Bay Space in Building 31. Thanks to the tremendous planning efforts of Joyce Light , together with our families we were treated to a performance by the Chorallaries, a photo booth, caricature artists, a cookie decorating station, and a robot demonstration by Julie Shah’s research group. The event truly went above and beyond and I want to reiterate my thanks to Joyce for all of her hard work that went into planning this special event.

Lastly, I wanted to bring your attention to a new regular feature in the Roundup: a Q & A with an AeroAstro staff member! This month, we feature our new HR Administrator, Hannah Ovaska , who shared some fun facts about herself, as well as her vision for her role in our community. If you are contacted by our Communications Officer Sara Cody, please consider participating so you can be featured in future issues of the Roundup!

2019 has been an exciting year for the Department, and I can't wait to see what 2020 – a new year and a new decade – will bring.