WAA Receives Elaine Harden Award for Leadership and Service
Aerospace Engineering student group recognized by the College of Engineering
Congratulations to the Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics (WAA) student organization who have been announced as the recipients of the Elaine Harden Award, presented to the U-M College of Engineering student organization that best exemplifies leadership and service to the community.
“It’s a big honor to receive this award because I feel like we’re being recognized as leaders. To me, that means inspiring people and leading by example, so creating that sense of community where we can lift each other up and support each other and then being recognized for that means a lot,” stated WAA President Rishika Mukherjee.
Founded in 2016, the WAA student group is comprised of over 40 members from a range of majors from around the university with a focus on fostering community, promoting diversity in aerospace, and helping members build professional connections through networking events and support. Over the past year, WAA has been an active and inspiring student group on campus through organizing various events that align with their five core pillars: Professional Development, Community, Mentorship, Outreach, and Conferences.
Among their major initiatives over the past academic year, WAA hosted the Katharine Wright Women in Aerospace Conference in November 2024, their annual corporate reception this past winter, and a Women’s History Month event on March 31, 2025. The Women’s History Month event featured five U-M speakers, sharing insights on inspiring women in aerospace, addressing common challenges faced by undergraduates, Professor Giusy Falcone discussing her lab’s work and Aerospace Engineering Graduate Student Research Assistant Hannah Hajdik speaking about her own optimization research in the Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) Lab.
Additionally, they held a variety of other external and internal networking opportunities for their members, including a lunch with Blue Origin, dinner with Lockheed Martin, resume reviews, LinkedIn workshops, a galentine’s day friendship event, Jeopardy trivia nights and other activities that bring them together in a supportive environment.
One of the main highlights of WAA’s efforts towards receiving the Elaine Harden Award included their outreach events that help give back to the local community. These initiatives included participating in a science olympiad event, a food gatherers event where they helped serve 830 pounds of food and also visited a local middle school where they helped young girls build robots. This particular event allowed the young students an opportunity to see other women who are thriving in STEM fields.
Looking ahead, WAA is preparing for the annual Aerospace Day later in April, organized in partnership with U-M AIAA Student Branch and other student organizations. To close out the academic year, they are currently planning their yearly member wrap-up events to celebrate U-M graduating members.
“It is an honor to be highlighted for our efforts in the department, and what I hope comes out of getting the award is our name being a little more out there, and that we caught the eyes of a few more students that are looking for their place. I hope that it grows us as a community and helps us reach more people,” commented WAA Internal Vice President Beyonce Cruz.
In the fall of 2024, WAA launched the newest Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics Rocketry Program (WAARP) student organization, with an aim to recruit and train members to design, build and test a rocket for the 2026 International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC), hosted by the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association. We look forward to watching the team continue to grow and evolve in both the WAA and WAARP space, as role models and leaders within the U-M community.