Austin, Freund & Pantano named AIAA Associate Fellows

Joanna M. Austin, Jonathan B. Freund, and Carlos Pantano-Rubino have been elected Associate Fellows of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Austin, who joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 2003, established the Compressible Fluid Mechanics (CFM) laboratory, and with the support of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, built the Hypervelocity Expansion Tube (HET) facility. Her research is predominantly experimental, combined with analytical modeling, including fundamental problems in fluid mechanics, particularly in reacting, compressible flows that occur in a broad range of applications: hypervelocity planetary entry, shock-driven bubble collapse, detonation and supersonic combustion, and high speed flow phenomena in geological applications such as explosive volcanic eruptions.

She has conducted a number of fundamental studies using the HET and other facilities in the CFM lab and has been published widely in such journals as Physics of Fluids, Progress in Aerospace Sciences, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Journal of Geophysical Research, and AIAA Journal. The depth and innovation of her research has led to funding by AFOSR, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and industries such as Gulfstream and Rolls-Royce.

Austin earned a BE in mechanical and space engineering and a BSc in mathematics from the University of Queensland, and her master's and PhD in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. An Illinois faculty member since 2001, Freund is a Kritzer Faculty Scholar, a professor of mechanical science and engineering (MechSE) and of aerospace engineering, an affiliate of the Department of Computer Science, and a part-time faculty member of the Beckman Institute. His research on concentrates on numerical simulation studies of atomic-scale and biological flows, free shear flow turbulence, and jet aeroacoustics. His group investigates mechanical phenomena in a range of systems.

Current and recent research activities include jet noise control, simulation and analysis of aeroacoustic resonances in jet engine test cells, tissue injury during shock-wave lithotripsy, the dynamics of atomically thin liquid films, the flow of large numbers of blood cells in the microcirculation, simulation of advanced solid rocket motors, thermal transport at crystal lattice boundaries, self-healing hydrodynamics in autonomic composites, ion machining of semiconductor materials. Most of the group’s investigations utilize advanced computer simulations tools coupled with detailed analysis. Freund and his colleagues design many of the simulations tools they use.

Before coming to Illinois, Freund was an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He earned three degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University: a bachelor’s in 1991, a master’s in 1992 and a PhD in 1998.

A MechSE faculty member since 2006, Pantano-Rubino's research focuses on turbulent flows with an emphasis on combustion and fluid-structure interaction. He has led research on computational fluid dynamics, turbulence modeling, combustion, numerical methods, and statistical modeling, with numerous publications on reacting flows and thermal hydraulic simulations. The ultimate goal of his research team is to pioneer an accurate way to compute turbulence and chemical interactions in hydrocarbon reactions without needing excessive calculations for the intricate chemical details. He is also actively working on numerical methods for embedded representations of complex geometrical objects.

Pantano is an active member of SIAM, APS, and The Combustion Institute and is a faculty affiliate in computational science and engineering at Illinois. Before joining the MechSE department, Pantano was a senior research fellow, senior postdoctoral fellow in aeronautics, and a lecturer in Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories at the California Institute of Technology.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Sevilla in Spain, a master’s degree in applied mathematics from L’École Centrale in France, and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of California at San Diego.
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Contact: Joanna Austin, Department of Aerospace Engineering, 217/333-3739. 

Jonathan Freund, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, 217/244-7729.

Carlos Pantano-Rubino, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineeirng, 217/244-1412.

Writers: William Bowman, associate director of communications, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, 217/244-0901 & Susan Mumm, editor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, 217/244-5382.

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.