Ami Ahure Powell (Fed)

Dr. Louise Ami Ahure Powell specializes in understanding failure mechanisms in composite materials to improve their designed lifetime for infrastructure, aerospace, and automotive applications. Dr. Ahure Powell is currently a Mechanical Engineer, who measures the strength at the embedded interphase in composites and utilizes advanced optical imaging techniques (e.g., fluorescence microscopy) combined with advanced experimental methods in solid mechanics (e.g., digital image correlation for strain mapping) to characterize damage in composite materials. Dr. Ahure Powell received a Bachelor of Science (2006), a Master of Science (2009), and a Ph.D. (2014) in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park. Her Ph.D. dissertation was on magnetorheological fluids and applications to adaptive landing gear for a lightweight helicopter (funded by the Boeing Company and the U.S. Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate). She is a Vertical Flight Foundation (VFF) Scholar (2009) and has received other graduate awards and honors (as a student). Dr. Ahure Powell is very involved in professional societies. She is an active member of the NIST Association for Black Staff (NABS), a Voting Director for the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) Baltimore/Washington chapter, and a returning alumna (focused on technical and professional development) in the Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics (WIAA) chapter at the University of Maryland (UMD).

NIST NRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018) centrally funded

Vertical Flight Foundation Scholarship (VFF) Hal Andrews Scholarship, 2009

Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) University Research Symposium 1^st Place Winner, 2009

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Mid-Atlantic Regional 1^st Place Research Award Recipient, 2009