The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a nonprofit engineering society, whose mission is to address the professional needs and interests of the past, current, and future aerospace workforce and to advance the state of aerospace science, engineering, technology, operations, and policy to benefit our global society. There are more than 31,000 professional members in its 65 sections and 5,500 student members in 145 student branches plus 56 domestic and international corporate members.
The Phoenix Section of AIAA
The Phoenix Section of AIAA has about professional 400 members distributed among the many aerospace firms in the Phoenix area. We represent engineers employed at such companies as Honeywell, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics.
We also have academic representation via regular and student members at Arizona State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. There are over 100 student members plus around 200 Educator Associate members (K-12 teachers). The organization offers free Educator Associate membership to teachers at all pre-college levels. We have regular monthly dinner meetings and occasional field trips and special events for our members. Student members and Educator Associates are welcome to attend these. We participate in public policy activities (Congressional Visit Days) and similar events.
K-12 and STEM Outreach
The Phoenix Section has supported aerospace-themed events at various local and works with such organizations as the Challenger Learning Center and Engineer’s Week in promoting science and engineering among our young people. Our members are working engineers and can arrange to visit your classroom to talk about careers or topics in aviation and space. We participate in educator resource events to advertise our society and promote the resources we offer.
The goals of the Phoenix Section STEM K-12 Committee are:
1. Promote Educator Associate membership to offer educators the benefits of AIAA membership and networking opportunities with engineers.
2. Publicize our Speakers Bureau in order to get more engineers in the classroom.
3. Establish partnerships and mentoring arrangements with schools and other institutions.
We are always looking for inputs from educators on how we can assist them, and we need more volunteers from our members in order to accomplish these goals. Please contact our K-12 chair (below) to get involved.
To reach me, send an email to: michael.mackowski@gmail.com
AIAA Links
Phoenix Section site: Click here
AIAA National home page: www.aiaa.org
AIAA Educator Academy curriculum modules: Click here
This site updated Nov. 2019