PhD student wins prestigious international engineering award for the second-year running
16 February 2026
The School of Engineering offers congratulations to our PhD student Anirudh Gullapalli who was recognised with the American Society for Composites Best Student Paper Award at SciTech 2026 in Orlando, Florida last month.
Supported by supervisors Dr. Abhishek Kundu and Prof. Carol Featherston, Anirudh’s paper ‘Physics-informed guided wave modes as robust identifiers of progressive structural degradation in thin-walled composite structures’ was acknowledged as the highest-ranked composites paper in the competition.
However, Anirudh is no stranger to this level of recognition as he previously received the Harry H. and Lois G. Hilton Best Student Paper Award at SciTech 2025.
With over 6000 participants, SciTech is the largest aerospace conference in the world, and the awards are highly competitive. To win one award is impressive, to win two is remarkable.
Anirudh also secured two travel grants from the South Wales Institute of Engineers Educational Trust (SWIEET2007) and the Institute of Physics which funded his conference trip and allowed him to participate in the competition.
Read Anirudh’s 2026 awarding winning paper here.
