Russell J. Penrose Faculty Fellowship Awarded to Thomas Schwartzentruber

Thomas Schwartzentruber

We are pleased to announce that Professor Thomas Schwartzentruber has been named the Russell J. Penrose Faculty Fellow. This three-year term fellowship was set up by a generous gift from Russ Penrose to the AEM department. This fellowship is for an outstanding mid-career faculty member.

Professor Schwartzentruber has been an AEM faculty member since 2008. His area of research involves using molecular methods to study low density, high speed fluid flows. Professor Schwartzentruber is one of the founders and leading practitioners of a method called Discrete Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), and he is currently working on developing even more powerful molecular dynamics techniques. His research applies to problems as diverse as atmospheric vehicle re-entry and materials processing.

Professor Schwartzentruber is also one of our outstanding teachers. He received a George Taylor Career Development Award in 2014 for his teaching accomplishments. Tom regularly teaches a graduate course in computational fluid dynamics as well as our undergraduate course in propulsion. Another award he received was in 2010, the AFOSR Young Investigators Research Program award.

The Russell J. Penrose Faculty Fellowship is specific to Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics and was established on October 9, 1990, through a generous gift from Mr. Russell J. Penrose. This gift was matched by an equal contribution from the Permanent University Fund. The Fellowship seeks to “obtain and retain distinguished faculty who are outstanding in their teaching and research capabilities. The Faculty Fellowship is designed to provide the individual who holds this position with the title of this distinction as well as financial resources in recognition of the significant contributions which they are making to their fields as well as to the department.” The Penrose Faculty Fellow previously included Professor Elliott.