![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/635684240771298250-photo-esseljpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCadet 1st Class Rebecca Esselstein was named the top graduate for the Air Force Academy Class of 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Air Force<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Esselstein, who is from Ohio, was a Rhodes and Marshal scholar. She was a flight commander and regularly made the Dean’s Aces List and Superintendent’s List. She was one of five graduating cadets honored for her military, academic and athletic excellence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Esselstein, an astronautical engineering major, conducted research at MIT on radar and infrared signatures, and was an Aspen Institute Socrates Program scholar studying the Supreme Court, the academy said in a May 26 release announcing her selection. And Esselstein worked on an academy satellite, FalconSAT-8, which is scheduled to launch in May 2016. She said she was part of the systems engineering team, and was in charge of getting the satellite’s baseline design ready for customers such as the Air Force Research Laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier in May, Esselstein, a track athlete, also qualified for the 1500-meter finals at the Mountain West Conference Championships, in her last collegiate track competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the release, Esselstein said being honored as the top in her class was “unbelievable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I never really expected to be the top graduate,” she said. “I just worked really hard and had a lot of people support me along the way. I couldn’t have done it without all the help and support from the faculty, my coaches, friends and teammates here. A lot of people helped me get to where I am today.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Esselstein will travel to England and begin her graduate studies at Oxford University in mid-September. In the meantime, she will work in the academy’s graduate studies office and help rising seniors apply for postgraduate scholarships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One by one, 840 Air Force Academy cadets graduating in the Class of 2015 crossed the stage Thursday at Falcon Stadium and shook hands with and saluted Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":67,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[16,67],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3320],"class_list":["post-24977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-air-force"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"ACBJD5APAJCA5JUZYA7MH3YPVE","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-air-force\/2015\/05\/28\/james-to-air-force-academy-graduates-lead-us-into-the-future\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n