Jarrett Lafleur

Jarret Lafleur, a fourth-year aerospace engineering major and a President's Scholar, was named to USA Today's 2006 College Academic All-Stars first team.

Students applying for the distinction were asked to write an essay about their "greatest intellectual endeavor," Lafleur said. He chose to submit his conceptual design for Daedalon, a morphing wings spacecraft for navigation on Mars.

"The concept was that you would enter (Mars' atmosphere) as a blunt body arrow shell and that arrow shell would transform into wings which could change shape as you got to lower speed. You could presumably morph your wings into a low-speed configuration as you slow down," Lafleur said.

Lafleur worked on the project for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts in 2003-04. As a co-op student, he has worked with the Johnson Space Center for three semesters, spending two in Houston and one at the White Sands, N.M., testing facility.

In 2005, Lafleur received a scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. Founded in 1984 by the six surviving astronauts of Mercury 7 and the widow of the seventh, the foundation says on its Web site that scholarships are awarded to "college students who exhibit motivation, imagination and exceptional performance in the science or engineering field of their major."

Originally from Rhode Island, Lafleur was attracted to Tech's top-flight aerospace engineering program. But that wasn't all. Lafleur has played flute and piccolo for the marching, concert and symphonic bands, the flute choir and the chamber winds ensemble. On his decision to attend Tech, Lafleur said, "I knew I could keep up with music while I was here and I could get the strong aerospace background that I wanted. Those were probably the biggest draws."

Lafleur plans to attend graduate school and pursue his PhD. He is not certain where graduate school will take him but "Georgia Tech is certainly up there in the running," he said.

Concerning his career aspirations, Lafleur said, "I certainly want to do space types of engineering. And I prefer to focus on human space flight and all the new exploration initiatives such as going to the moon and Mars."