I am very grateful to be selected as one of the 2026 AIAA 30/30 recipients in the Aerospace Sciences category.

I have been recognized for my work on UAV icing and, in particular, my efforts to help establish this topic as an important challenge and research focus for the aerospace community.

I started working on UAV icing in 2016. At the time, it was still a very niche research topic. What began as a PhD project has since become a red thread throughout my career. Over the past ten years, the need for UAVs to operate in cold and adverse weather conditions has grown a lot. Today, this is especially important for defense, where UAVs are increasingly used in challenging and cold environments and in the Arctic. At the same time, more civilian drone services are moving from testing into regular operations. These systems and services are expected to work safely throughout the whole year. That means they also need to deal with snow, clouds, icing, low temperatures, and other harsh weather conditions.
It has been very rewarding to see UAV icing develop from a rather small research niche into a much broader international research and engineering topic.

Of course, this has not been a one-person journey. I am very grateful to all the colleagues, students, researchers, and industry partners who have worked alongside me over the years and helped build this field. A special thank you to my colleagues in the AIAA Atmospheric and Space Environments Technical Committee, and to everyone who supported and nominated me for this recognition

Thank you, AIAA, for the recognition – and congratulations to all the other 2026 AIAA 30/30 recipients!

2026 AIAA 30/30 Recipients Announced: Aerospace Sciences Category