Dr. Paul Dimotakis is the John K. Northrop Professor of Aeronautics and
Professor of Applied Physics at Caltech. He earned his B.Sc. in Physics,
his M.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering, and his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from
Caltech. Following his Ph.D. degree, he was invited to stay on as a
member of the faculty at Caltech, moving up the ranks as Assistant
Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor, before being awarded the
John K Northrop Chair in 1995. Following work on liquid helium and
superfluidity, his research focused on experimental, computational, and
theoretical investigations of turbulent-flow phenomena, with an emphasis
on turbulent transport and mixing, in chemically reacting and
non-reacting flows and combustion. He and his co-workers have been
responsible for the development of experimental facilities and laser
diagnostics, and introduced advances in signal processing, high-speed
digital temporal- and image-data acquisition techniques, high-speed CCD
imager design, and image-data processing. His research has also included
work on active control of separated flows, studies of cavitation,
hydrodynamic stability and gasdynamic simulations, image-correlation
techniques for velocity-field (optical-flow) measurement,
multi-dimensional measurements, aerooptics effects, and work on adaptive
optics.
His space-related activities began while an undergraduate at Caltech,
under Prof. Ed Stone, the previous JPL Director, with work on an Orbital
Geophysical Observatory (OGO-C) satellite in the 1960s, contributing to
its calibration and data analysis software package and, shortly after
launch, solving for the satellite attitude as a function of time when
the spacecraft attitude-control system failed. He contributed to the
development of the Space Shuttle aerodynamics, assisted with the
analysis of the Galileo antenna deployment anomaly, participated in
early discussions on the Mars Pathfinder mission landing system, and in
the analysis of prelaunch test data of the SIRTF-Spitzer cryostat tank.
Leading a small Caltech team and a team from JPL led by Michael Watkins,
they contributed an analysis of the trajectory of one of the early
debris fragments from the fateful Columbia reentry. This was quickly
shared with NASA and the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB).
In January 2005, Dr. Dimotakis gave a Caltech Watson lecture on, "The
Columbia STS-107 reentry, and present and future space access."
In some of his work outside Caltech and as a consultant, he has
contributed to the development of early pilotless drones, high-power
chemical lasers, the stealth fighter, assisted in the internal
aerodynamics of sealed computer (Winchester) disks, helped with the
fluid mechanics design of the "Leap-Frog fountain" at Disney's Epcot
Center in Florida, helped develop precision solid-state pressure
transducers, participated in experiments at the Lawrence Livermore Nova
laser facility and subsequently assisted with compressible and
incompressible turbulence problems, in general. Also a sailor, he was a
member of the AMERICA3 sail-design team in their successful defense of
the Americas Cup in 1992.
Paul Dimotakis received an ASCIT teaching award at Caltech in 1994-95,
has served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and
is presently a Fellow of the American Physical Society and an Associate
Fellow of the AIAA. He has served on National Academy of Science panels
on Inertial Confinement Fusion and High-Energy Density Physics, and has
led studies for various government agencies on space-launch options for
small payloads, space propulsion, hypersonics, high-speed ships, thermal
management of high-energy lasers, and on other topics.
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