Prof. Dr. Melike Nikbay from the Department of Astronautical Engineering was elected as the chairman of the NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO) Applied Vehicle Technologies (AVT) Panel Support Committee. Prof. Dr. Melike Nikbay will continue her duty for two years until the end of 2023.

Bilateral or multiple international research and development projects of at most three years duration are supported under the management of the NATO Collaboration Support Office to contribute to the development of the technological opportunities of NATO countries. Within the scope of the support program, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey can receive support. Supported countries can work with one or more other NATO countries to support these projects.

Within the scope of the Applied Vehicle Technologies Panel, three technical committees work for the development of military land, air, sea, and space platforms. These are Mechanical Systems, Structures, and Materials (TC-MSM), Propulsion and Power Systems (TC-PPS), and Performance, Stability & Control, Fluid Physics (TC-PSF) technical committees. The support committee is responsible for the coordination required for the promotion, evaluation, approval, and execution of the project applications that can be implemented in the fields of activity of these three technical committees. Within the scope of the AVT Panel, 9 support projects are currently being carried out. One of these projects is the project named "Turbulence and Aerodynamic Optimization of Non-Planar Transport Systems" directed by Prof. Dr. Melike Nikbay and conducted with the bilateral cooperation of Glasgow University and Istanbul Technical University. Within the scope of the project numbered AVT-SP-002, which is still ongoing between 2018-2022, computational fluid dynamics, structural design, and optimization studies for the development of unmanned combat aircraft are carried out by the ITU Aerospace Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Laboratory AeroMDO Lab team, and production and experimental studies are carried out at Glasgow University's De Havilland National Wind Tunnel facility.