Dr. Smits received his Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 1975. After serving two years as a
Research Assistant to Professor P. Bradshaw at Imperial College, London, he returned to the University of Melbourne as a
Research Fellow, working with Professor P. N. Joubert. He was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University in 1981, promoted to Associate Professor in 1985, and Full
Professor in 1991. In July, 1998, Professor Smits became Chairman of his department. His research interests are
centered on fundamental, experimental research in turbulence, fluid mechanics and heat transfer. Particular aspects
include the behavior of low and high Reynolds number turbulent boundary layers, at subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic
speeds, the response of boundary layers to extra strain rates and other strong perturbations; Mach and Reynolds number
effects on turbulence; shock-wave/turbulent boundary layer interactions; flow control; Taylor-Couette flows;
fluid-structure interaction; sports ball aerodynamics and the development of new and improved measurement techniques. He
has served as the Director of the Princeton University Gasdynamics Laboratory since 1989. From 1990 to 1995, he served
as an Associate Editor for the journal of Experimental and Thermal Fluid Science published by Elsevier, and he was the
Editor-in-Chief from 1995 to 1999. He is currently an Associate Editor of Physics of Fluids, an Associate Editor of the
Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Turbulence. He is the co-author (with J.P.
Dussauge of IRPHE in Marseille, France) of Turbulent Shear Layers in Compressible Flow, Springer-Verlag, 1996 (2nd
ed., 2003), author of A Physical Introduction to Fluid Mechanics, John Wiley & Sons, 2000, and co-editor (with T.T.
Lim of the National University, Singapore) of Flow Visualization: Techniques and Examples, Imperial College Press,
2000 (2nd ed., 2003), as well as the author or co-author of about 220 other journal articles and conference papers. He is
a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a
Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
