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Three New AEM Faculty Members

Honors, Awards and Presentations

Professor Thomas S. Lundgren Retires

News AboutOur Faculty

Professor Gary Balas was a member of the Technical Program Committee for the SPIE Conference on Smart Structures and Materials. He was also a member of the International Programme Committee for the 4th IFAC Symposium on Fault Detection and Identification; and the 6th Mini-Conference on Vehicle System Dynamics, Identification and Anomalie.

Professor Graham Candler gave an invited lecture at the 3rd MAPINT Symposium on Multidisciplinary Applications and Interoperable Computing, Dayton, OH, August 1999. He was also a member of the Scientific Organizing Committee for VECPAR 2000, 4th International Meeting on Vector and Parallel Processing, Porto, Portugal, June 2000.

Professor Roger Fosdick gave invited talks at the Department of Mechanics and Materials Science at Michigan State University, November 1999, and at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Cornell University, March 2000.

Professor Richard James gave an Institute Lecture at the Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, and invited lectures at University of Bath, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Harvard University (Applied Mechanics and Condensed Matter Physics), the University of Minnesota (CEMS and ME), the University of Nottingham, and Oxford University (Mathematics Institute and the Department of Materials). He organized, together with S. Mueller, G. Friesecke and E. Salje, a workshop on Passsage from Atomic to Continuum Scales at Castle Ringberg, Tegernsee, Germany, and he also organized, with G. Mcfadden, the 3rd SIAM Meeting on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science. Professor James also gave invited presentations at the SPIE Conference on Smart Structures and Materials; the Isaac Netwon Institute Workshops on Phase Transformations and Homogenization, and on Nonlocal Effects in Materials; the annual meeting on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (San Jose); and the Workshop on Dynamics (Oxford University).

Professor Perry Leo gave invited talks at the Gordon Conference on Thin Films; the SIAM meeting on Mathematics and Materials, Philadelphia, PA; the New York University Courant Institute, New York, NY; and the Newton Institute, Cambridge, England.

Professor Ellen Longmire gave invited lectures at the TEPCO International Symposium on Energy and the Environment in Yokohama, Japan; Kyushu Insitute of Technology, Japan; and Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. She also gave presentations at the 3rd International Workshop on Particle Image Velocimetry, Santa Barbara, CA, the APS Fluid Dynamics Conference in New Orleans, and the ERCOFTAC Conference on Particle-Laden Flows in Kappel, Switzerland.

Professor Ivan Marusic gave a presentation at the American Physical Society, 52nd Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA 1999. He was an invited speaker at a Workshop on “Mining Scientific Data Bases” at Army High Performance Computing Research Center, Minneapolis. He was also a seminar speaker at Stanford University, Mechanical Engineering, November 1999; a seminar speaker at University of Illinos, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, February 2000; and a seminar speaker at Princeton Universqty, Mechanical Enginehring, March 2000.

Professor William Warner, Professor Emeritus, has recently published a paper on “Optimal Design of Rods” in the International Journal of Solids and Structures (2000). Two further related papers have been accepted for publication. He may be reached by e-mail at warner@aem.umn.edu

Three New AEM Faculty Members

Professor Mehran Mesbahi joined the AEM faculty as an Assistant Professor in January of 2000. Professor Mesbahi’s research interest is in system theory and control, particularly as applied in the design of distributed space systems. He has contributed to the theoretical and algorithmic foundations of the matrix inequality approach to the dynamic system analysis and synthesis, distributed decision making, and parallel optimization methods. Over the last few years, Professor Mesbahi’s research has been concerned with the development of robust reconfigurable control and estimation algorithms for formation flying of multiple spacecraft. Another area of Professor Mesbahi’s research is in the development of a set of analytic and algorithmic tools for designing high performance hybrid systems- systems that evolve according to an interaction between discrete (logic-based) and continuous dynamics.

Professor Ashley James joined the AEM faculty as an Assistant Professor in August of 2000. Professor James’ primary research interests are in interfacial fluid flow and computational fluid dynamics. Her main area of concentration has been the vibration-induced breakup of a liquid drop. Other directions include the analysis of interfacial flows in industrial applications, the development of improved computational methods for interfacial flows, and basic research into the small-scale physics of interfacial breakup and coalescence. Professor James Received her PhD from Georgia Tech in Mechanical Engineering in 2000, and her BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida in 1990. She worked for 3 years at Westinghouse Electric after receiving her BS.

Professor Krishnan Mahesh will be joining the AEM faculty in November of 2000. Professor Mahesh’s primary interest is the computation, analysis, and modeling of fluid flows. Examples of his work include simulating the interaction between shock waves and turbulent flows, developing numerical algorithms for direct numerical, and large eddy simulation, and modeling the phenomenon of vortex breakdown. Professor Mahesh is currently developing a numerical method, and models to simulate turbulent reacting flows in realistic engineering geometries. Another area of current interest is plasma assisted materials processing, where the objective is to develop a robust, accurate numerical tool to study the plasma reactors used in semiconductor processing. Professor Mahesh received his PhD and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford in 1996 and 1990 respectively. He received his B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1989. He served as Research Associate at the Stanford Center for Turbulence Research before joining our faculty.

Honors, Awards and Presentations

Professor Gary Balas received the Outstanding Young Investigator Award, ASME Dynamic System and Control Division in the Fall of 1999. The DSCD Outstanding Young Investigator Award is given biannually by the Dynamic Systems and Control Division of ASME to a DSCD member under 40 who as a mechanical engineering professional has demonstrated outstanding research contributions, either basic or applied, to the fields of interest to the DSCD.

Professor Perry Leo received the Outstanding Professor Award from the Institute of Technology Student Board at the University of Minnesota.

Professor William Garrard was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Space Grant Alliance.

Professor Richard James was the Rothschild Visiting Professor at Cambridge University Fall of 1999. He also received a Focus Grant from the National Science Foundation to do research on biomedical MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems). This involves exploring the use of ferromagnetic shape memory (and related) materials, powered remotely by magnetic fields applied external to the body, to run microscale actuators for noninvasive surgery and drug delivery.

Dr. Raffaella Rizzoni, Dipartimento di Ingegneria at the Universita’ di Ferrara, a frequent postdoctoral visitor to the Department who works with Professor James on active thin films and microactuators, received the “Best Poster of the Conference” at the EuroMech Congress in 2000 for her poster on pressurized thin films.

Professor Daniel Joseph received the FLUID DYNAMICS PRIZE OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY 1999.

Professor Ivan Marusic received a National Science Foundation Career Award. His project is entitled, “A Physical Modeling Approach to Wall Turbulence and Enhancing the Educational Experience Through the Beauty of Fluid Motion.” The project will provide an educational plan for undergraduates and graduates with relevant and inspiring courses, together with a strong research experience; and second, promote the physical sciences by bringing the field of fluid mechanics closer to pre-university students. The first phase will involve teaching techniques for lectures that includes a laboratory component. The second phase includes high-school teacher workshops on using interactive flow visualization exhibits. Project collaboration will be done with both Minneapolis and St. Paul schools and other K-12 University of Minnesota units.

Professor Marusic also received a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship. It runs from July 1, 2000 to June 30, 2002. Professor Marusic’s research is in fluid dynamics, with a focus on turbulent flow near solid surfaces. His main goal is to understand the underlying physical mechanisms that self-sustain wall turbulence. Understanding turbulence is important in many technological fields ranging from aerodynamics of aircraft to microelectronic mechanical systems.

Professor Thomas S. Lundgren Retires

Thomas S. Lundgren was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1931 and was raised in Indianapolis, Indiana where his father managed an advertising agency. He was educated at the University of Minnesota earning a BS in 1954 and a MS in 1956 from the Aeronautical Engineering Department (now Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics) and a PhD in Fluid Mechanics in 1960. After graduating, he joined the Aeronautical Engineering Department as an Assistant Professor. The ranks of Associate Professor and Full Professor followed in 1963 and 1965. Professor Lundgren was highly regarded and a popular teacher of advanced courses in fluid dynamics, many of which he introduced into the curriculum. These courses were popular with students of fluid mechanics from all departments. Many of his students have advanced to high prominence and his influence is felt by a generation of leading fluid mechanists from Minnesota.

Professor Lundgren benefited from Sabbatical leaves at the California Institute of Technology, the National Center for Atmospheric research and at NASA Ames Research Center, where he has maintained close ties.

His research has been in theoretical fluid mechanics. He has written numerous papers in vortex dynamics, turbulence and in free surface hydrodynamics. He is best known for two seminal works; Distribution Functions in the Statistical Theory of Turbulence, Physical Fluids (1967) and Strained Spinal Vortex model for Turbulent Fine Structure, Physical Fluids (1982). He is widely regarded as one of the few world leaders in the theory of turbulence. He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society for his contributions in 1998. Professor Lundgren is retiring after 50 years at the University of Minnesota, 40 of them as faculty member.

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