ODU Grad Selected as Peninsula Engineers Council Engineer of the Year

Old Dominion University graduate Christine M. Belcastro, a senior research engineer at NASA Langley Research Center, has been selected as the Peninsula Engineers Council Engineer of the Year.

Belcastro, who will receive her award at a banquet on Feb. 20, earned bachelor's (1981) and master's (1986) degrees in electrical engineering from ODU's Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology. She went on to receive a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Drexel University.

All three of her degrees have an emphasis on systems and control theory.

A lifelong Virginia Peninsula resident, Belcastro has worked at NASA Langley since 1980. Her career has been dedicated to improving aviation safety, with a focus on reducing aircraft loss-of-life accidents. Throughout her career, various projects aimed at that ultimate goal have been singled out for awards.

In addition to her technical achievements, Belcastro has published or co-authored more than 50 technical publications and presentations on aviation safety for international conferences, workshops and journals. She has organized numerous invited sessions on aviation for international conferences.

Belcastro serves on an international committee on aerospace control and guidance systems, and gave the featured presentation at a conference in Stockholm, Sweden, on validation and verification of safety-critical techniques.

She has made it a point to help future generations of engineers, particularly women, by providing technical mentorship, and has conducted contracted activities with a number of institutions, especially ODU, that led to the awarding of graduate engineering degrees for her protégés.