Department of Aerospace Engineering Professor David Akin received the 2025 Technical Excellence Award from the International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES), one of the organization’s highest honors.

The peer-nominated, lifetime achievement award recognizes Akin’s decades of contributions to advancing technologies that make life in space possible, from spacesuit design to space habitat design.

“The cool thing about this conference is that it's the singular annual technical meeting for everybody in the world doing spacesuit or space life support work,” explained Akin, who has been an attendee since the mid-1980s.

Akin’s love for space began as a child growing up near Cape Canaveral, where he could watch rocket launches from his front yard. That early inspiration, paired with an insatiable curiosity for building and improving things, carried him to M.I.T., where his neutral buoyancy research eventually attracted NASA’s attention, and a $1 million grant to establish a dedicated facility. With no room for it on M.I.T.’s campus, Akin relocated to the University of Maryland, where in 1992 the Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility (NRBF) opened its doors.

Today, the NBRF—a 50-foot-diameter, 25-foot-deep water tank—is the only facility of its kind at a U.S. university. Part of Maryland’s Space Systems Laboratory, it has trained generations of engineers, supported NASA missions, and advanced research in space robotics, systems, and human factors.

Over his career, Akin has authored more than 300 professional publications and led pioneering research in dexterous robotics, human–robot interaction, and experimental spacesuit systems. Many of these efforts have grown from student-driven concepts developed in competitions such as eXploration Habitat (X-Hab) and Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts–Academic Linkage (RASC-AL), as well as his senior capstone Space Systems Design courses.

“I’ve spent most of my career hoping I could be considered for this specific award,” Akin said. “Many of the previous winners were people I looked up to when I started in the field, and who later became colleagues and friends. I am immensely proud to join their ranks.”