The Yngve K. Raustein Award has been established to recognize significant achievement by a student in Unified Engineering each year.
The new award was created in memory of Raustein, a Norwegian member of the class of 1994 majoring in aeronautics and astronautics who was murdered on Memorial Drive a year ago. It will be endowed through donations from the MIT and Cambridge communities and from friends and family of Raustein.
Faculty and teaching staff of Unified Engineering (a sophomore-level subject in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics), together with the Baker housemasters and a student from Baker House (where Raustein lived) will select the student winner or winners each year. It will be presented by the Baker housemasters at the department's senior awards dinner in May, and the winners' names will be included in the department's annual report. The 1993 winner is Vadim Khayms.
The award will be given to the Unified Engineering student(s) who, through outstanding achievement, personal improvement and/or overcoming of difficulties, best exemplify the spirit that Raustein brought to Unified. (Should Unified Engineering be replaced in the future, the award will pertain to the succeeding sophomore-level subjects in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics).
Raustein himself overcame the difficulties of enrolling as a transfer student from a foreign country and studying in a foreign language while excelling academically. At the end of his sophomore year, he was elected into the Sigma Gamma Tau aerospace engineering honor society, an honor bestowed on the top 20 percent of the class.
In 1991, Raustein transferred to MIT from the University of Bergen in Norway to pursue his interest in space technology, which was initially kindled by the Challenger accident in 1986. He was active in the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space and traveled to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the launch of the space shuttle Discovery in January 1992.
Contributions may be sent to the Yngve K. Raustein MIT Memorial Fund, c/o Ms. Winifred McDonough, Recording Secretary, Office of the Treasurer, MIT, 238 Main St., Suite 200, Cambridge, MA 02142.
A version of this article appeared in the November 17, 1993 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 38, Number 14).
