August 28, 2008
The department welcomes two new faculty members this semester: Dr. Jayant Sirohi in the Structural Dynamics Area and Dr. Charles Tinney in the Fluid Mechanics Area.
Dr. Sirohi joins us as an Assistant Professor from Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, where he was a Staff Engineer in the Advanced Concepts group. At Sikorsky, he was involved with the conceptual design of next generation vertical take-off aircraft, as well as the performance enhancement of existing rotorcraft using advanced technologies.
He obtained his Ph.D. from the Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center, University of Maryland, College Park, in the area of Smart Structures. After his graduate studies, he was an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Aerospace Engineering working on hover capable Micro-Aerial Vehicle configurations.
Dr. Shirohi's research interests include high power density solid state actuators, multifunctional structures, multi-mission capable micro/unmanned aerial vehicles, and rotorcraft design. He plans to introduce a course focused on rotorcraft technology, including aerodynamics, dynamics, performance and design. This fall he is teaching ASE 365: Structural Dynamics.
Dr. Tinney joins us as an Assistant Professor after serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. at Syracuse University in 2005 where he was a recipient of the All University Doctoral Prize.
Following his graduate studies at Syracuse University, Dr. Tinney spent over two years at the University of Poitiers as a post-doctoral fellow of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) where he focused on performing large, laboratory scaled experiments to support the development of robust numerical tools for predicting the flow and aeroacoustic properties of high-speed subsonic jets under more realistic engine operating conditions (Sixth European Framework Programme: CoJeN).
While a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida – REEF, Dr. Tinney and co-workers have been studying the flow and aerodynamic characteristics of biologically inspired flight: Micro-Air Vehicles (MAV) comprising both rigid and compliant surfaces and the flight mechanisms associated with flapping.
Dr. Tinney is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a member of the American Physical Society and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. This fall he is teaching ASE 320: Low-Speed Aerodynamics and will be developing a graduate introductory course on Turbulence.
