Two groups honor Smits for his contributions

By Steven Schultz on Dec. 1, 2006, 3:49 p.m.

Alexander Smits, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, will receive two major awards in 2007 for his work on turbulence and fluid mechanics.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers will honor Smits with the 2007 Fluids Engineering Award. The award is given annually to one recipient “for outstanding contributions, over a period of years, to the engineering profession and especially to the field of fluids engineering through research, practice and/or teaching.”

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics has chosen Smits to receive the 2007 Pendray Aerospace Literature Award “for outstanding and significant contributions to the aerospace literature, especially in the area of high Reynolds turbulent flows and for his dedicated service as an editor and associate editor of many fluid dynamics journals.” He received the institute’s Fluid Dynamics Award in 2004.

A member of the Princeton faculty for 25 years, Smits has directed the University’s Gas Dynamics Laboratory since 1989. He is a four-time recipient of the Engineering Council’s Excellence in Teaching Award and chaired the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from 1998 to 2004. He is a chief editor of www.efluids.com, a Web portal for students and researchers in fluid dynamics, and an associate editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics and the Journal of Turbulence.

Smits is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Institute of Physics. 

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