The AIAA Niagara Frontier Section connects aerospace professionals and students across a unique binational region through technical events, webinars, historic preservation, and educational programs.
Western and Central New York,
Eastern Ontario and Quebec
Five historic Eastman Kodak Company sites in Rochester, NY have been nominated for AIAA Historic Aerospace Site designation. Over more than a century, these sites contributed to aerial photography, Cold War satellite reconnaissance, and landmark space exploration missions. The commemorative plaque, if approved, will be placed at the Rochester Museum and Science Center.
Nomination submitted by Dr. Agamemnon L. Crassidis. Site contact: Dr. James W. Meyer. Selection pending by the AIAA History Committee. See the Historic Aerospace Sites page for the section's previously designated sites.
The AIAA Niagara Frontier Section presented its John D. Hodge Young Professional Award to Dr. Fabien Royer, Assistant Professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, at the 40th Annual Niagara Frontier Aviation and Space Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremony, May 8, 2026.
Dr. Royer leads the Cornell Space Structures Laboratory, where his research focuses on the next generation of large deployable structures for satellites and deep-space infrastructure. His work spans instabilities in thin-shell structures, in-space manufacturing and assembly, and lightweight active structures. He holds a PhD in Space Engineering from Caltech and earned his engineering degree from ISAE-SUPAERO in France.
The John D. Hodge Young Professional Award honors early-career aerospace professionals in the Niagara Frontier Section (western New York, eastern Ontario, and Quebec). It is named for John D. Hodge (1929–2021), who began his career on the Avro CF-105 Arrow in Malton, Ontario, and became NASA's second flight director after Chris Kraft, serving in that role on both Mercury and Gemini. The Mission Control photo at right shows Hodge at his console during a Gemini mission.
On March 16, 1926, Robert Goddard completed the first liquid-fueled rocket launch — a brief flight that forever changed the trajectory of space exploration. Exactly 100 years later, the AIAA Niagara Frontier Section commemorated that milestone with a Zoom colloquium featuring three distinguished speakers.
A recording of the webinar is available on the Webinar Archive page.
The integration of AIAA members in Ontario and Quebec into AIAA Region I took a major step forward when the 2025 Region I Student Conference was held March 20–21 in Montréal, Quebec. Hosted by École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) and organized by the ÉTS student branch and their faculty advisor Dr. Ruxandra Botez, the conference welcomed over 170 participants and featured 52 student research presentations from the U.S. and Canada.
The conference was made possible by Gold Sponsor Aéro Montréal, and the generous support of Bombardier, Telesat, Safran Landing Systems, OPAL-RT Technologies, the Consortium for Research and Innovation in Aerospace in Quebec, the Royal Aeronautical Society, and GE Aerospace.