Catherine Cavagnaro facts for kids

Catherine Elizabeth Cavagnaro (born 1965) is an American mathematician and a skilled pilot. She teaches math at Sewanee: The University of the South. She is also famous for her amazing flying skills. She once held a record for spinning an airplane many times in a row. She has won many awards for helping make flying safer and for teaching others how to fly. She is even in the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame!

Becoming a Math Professor

Catherine Cavagnaro went to Santa Clara University and finished in 1987. She then earned her PhD (a high-level degree) from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1995. Her special math studies were about shapes and spaces.

In 1993, she started teaching math at Sewanee: The University of the South. She even became the head of the math department there. She created new math classes that combined her love for flying with numbers. These classes taught students about how planes fly and how to use math to understand physical things.

In 2001, Catherine Cavagnaro helped write a book called Dictionary of Classical and Theoretical Mathematics. It was a big book about math terms.

Her Amazing Aviation Career

When Catherine was a math student, she loved watching planes fly by. She dreamed of flying but couldn't afford lessons. In 1999, she finally started learning to fly. This was a special gift from her husband.

She became a certified flight instructor in 2001. This means she could teach others how to fly. She learned special tricks like aerobatics, which is flying stunts. She trained with a famous pilot who was known as a "spin doctor."

Catherine Cavagnaro has flown several types of planes. These include a Cessna 152 Aerobat, a Beechcraft Bonanza, and a Piper Cherokee 140.

Breaking a Flying Record

A pilot named William K. Kershner held a record for spinning an airplane 25 times in a flat spin. Catherine Cavagnaro broke his record! She performed 60 spins in her Cessna plane. She even filmed it to show that the way to stop the spin doesn't change, even after many turns. Later, another pilot named Spencer Suderman broke her record with even more spins.

From 2004 to 2008, she worked with NASA. She was a test pilot, flying a special plane to see how it handled when ice formed on it.

Today, Catherine Cavagnaro runs her own flying school called Ace Aerobatic School in Sewanee, Tennessee. She also writes articles for pilots and helps the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) test new pilots.

Awards and Recognition

Catherine Cavagnaro has won many awards for her work in aviation:

• In 2005, she received an Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarship.
• In 2018, she was named the National FAA Safety Team Representative of the Year.
• In 2020, she was named the National Certificated Flight Instructor of the Year.
• She was added to the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame in 2018.

Her story was even included in a book about women aviators called A Hunger for the Sky.