What Is the Judith A. Resnik Award Committee?

The Judith A. Resnik Award Committee is the standing IEEE body responsible for reviewing nominations and selecting recipients of the IEEE Judith A. Resnik Award, an annual recognition for outstanding contributions to space engineering within the fields of interest of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS). The award was established by IEEE in 1986, following the loss of Judith A. Resnik and her six crewmates in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986. Administration of the award passed to the AESS in 2015, and the selection committee operates under that society's governance.

Judith A. Resnik and the Award's Origins

Judith Arlene Resnik (1949-1986) was an electrical engineer, software engineer, and NASA astronaut who became the second American woman to fly in space during STS-41-D aboard Space Shuttle Discovery in 1984. She earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and worked at RCA, the National Institutes of Health, and Xerox before joining the astronaut corps. Her contributions to aerospace engineering and her identity as an IEEE member made the institution of an award in her name a natural expression of both professional respect and collective loss. An account of her career and IEEE legacy appears in IEEE-USA InSight's profile of Resnik as engineer and astronaut, which situates her technical accomplishments within her broader historical significance.

Award Criteria and Scope

The award recognizes individuals or teams for outstanding contributions to space engineering, defined broadly to encompass organization, systems engineering, design, development, integration, and operation of complex systems for space, air, ocean, or ground environments. This scope aligns with the AESS fields of interest, which span radar, sonar, navigation, avionics, and satellite systems. Nominations are open to any individual, and candidates need not be IEEE or AESS members, though membership is a consideration when all else is equal. Recipients receive a bronze medal, a framed certificate, and a two-thousand-dollar honorarium. The IEEE recognition page for the Judith A. Resnik Award lists historical recipients and the specific contributions cited for each award.

Committee Function and Selection Process

The award committee solicits and evaluates nominations on an annual cycle. Nominators submit documentation describing the candidate's technical contributions, with supporting letters from recognized practitioners in the relevant engineering domain. The committee assesses nominations against the award's stated criteria, weighing the significance, novelty, and breadth of the candidate's contributions to space engineering. The committee's work sits within the broader IEEE awards program, which coordinates more than a hundred technical field awards, medals, and prize papers across IEEE's member societies. The IEEE Awards Board governance framework describes how technical society committees interface with the central IEEE awards structure.

Applications

The Judith A. Resnik Award Committee's work has relevance across a range of space engineering activities, including:

• Satellite communication system design and deployment
• Orbital mechanics and spacecraft navigation systems
• Avionics and flight control for crewed and uncrewed vehicles
• Space science instrument development and mission systems integration
• Ground station and mission operations engineering
• Engineering education and workforce development in aerospace fields