New Mission from NATO to Our Faculty Member Prof. Dr. Melike Nikbay

ITU Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Astronautical Engineering faculty member Prof. Dr. Melike Nikbay was elected as the chairman of the NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO) Applied Vehicle Technologies (AVT) Panel Support Committee. Prof. Dr. Melike Nikbay will continue her duty for two years until the end of 2023.

Bilateral or multiple international research and development projects of at most three years duration are supported under the management of the NATO Collaboration Support Office to contribute to the development of the technological opportunities of NATO countries. Within the scope of the support program, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey can receive support. Supported countries can work with one or more other NATO countries to support these projects.

Within the scope of the Applied Vehicle Technologies Panel, three technical committees work for the development of military land, air, sea, and space platforms. These are Mechanical Systems, Structures, and Materials (TC-MSM), Propulsion and Power Systems (TC-PPS), and Performance, Stability & Control, Fluid Physics (TC-PSF) technical committees. The support committee is responsible for the coordination required for the promotion, evaluation, approval, and execution of the project applications that can be implemented in the fields of activity of these three technical committees. Within the scope of the AVT Panel, 9 support projects are currently being carried out. One of these projects is the project named "Turbulence and Aerodynamic Optimization of Non-Planar Transport Systems" directed by Prof. Dr. Melike Nikbay and conducted with the bilateral cooperation of Glasgow University and Istanbul Technical University. Within the scope of the project numbered AVT-SP-002, which is still ongoing between 2018-2022, computational fluid dynamics, structural design, and optimization studies for the development of unmanned combat aircraft are carried out by the ITU Aerospace Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Laboratory AeroMDO Lab team, and production and experimental studies are carried out at Glasgow University's De Havilland National Wind Tunnel facility.

Prof. Dr. Melike Nikbay

Melike Nikbay received her bachelor's degree in 1996 and her master's degree in 1998 from Boğaziçi University Mechanical Engineering Department. However, she earned a master's degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado (Boulder) in 1999. She completed her doctorate in 2002 in the fields of "Aeroelastic Optimization and Sonic Burst Minimization" at the same department at the University of Colorado, where she also worked as a research assistant between 1998-2002. She worked at Arçelik between 1995-1998 and at Kalekalıp between 2003-2004. She started full-time academic life at ITU Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2004. She was appointed to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio in 2014-2015. In 2015-2016, she conducted a project on the effects of aeroelastic uncertainties on sonic boom as part of the Ultrasonic Aircraft Technology program at NASA Langley Research Center. Returning to her duty at ITU in September 2016, Melike Nikbay was appointed as a professor the following year. She is responsible for the management of AeroMDO Lab, the Aerospace Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Laboratory established in 2019. Representing our country at the Applied Vehicle Technologies Panel of NATO Science and Technology Organization since 2008, where she was appointed by the Ministry of National Defense, Prof. Nikbay took part in many NATO research teams. Currently, she is the Chairman of the AVT Panel Support Committee and also the country representative of the Mechanical Systems, Materials and Structures Technical Committee. Since 2010, she has been working as an External Expert Evaluator of the European Commission in the Cleansky and EISMEA programs in the field of aviation. In 2017, she was awarded the "Academy Membership" award by the American Aeronautics and Space Institute, and the "Young Participant" award by the NATO Science and Technology Organization in 2016.