November 3, 2011
Several semesters after senior Steven Arestie took Dr. Noel Clemens’class, he approached him with several questions regarding fluid flow in a spacecraft thruster application. Not only did Clemens answer his questions, he went above and beyond.
“We talked about the problem I was having for nearly two hours,” Arestie said. “He was so generous in taking time out of his extremely busy schedule to talk to an undergraduate student about something other than what was going on in his class. I can truthfully say that this does not happen with most other professors.”
Clemens’ unparalleled commitment to his students for the last 18 years has recently been rewarded with the prestigious Lockheed Martin Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching. The award is given annually to an outstanding Cockrell School of Engineering faculty member who had dedicated an abundance of time and energy to teaching undergraduate and graduate students. Clemens was nominated for the award by ASE/EM Chairman and Professor, Philip Varghese.
“Noel excels as a teacher outside the classroom and is an outstanding dissertation supervisor,” Varghese said. “He is a gifted experimentalist and has passed on his knowledge to many students who now occupy influential positions in industry and national laboratories. He has built one of the world’s best programs in laser-based flow visualization.”
Clemens’ success in the classroom is based on a teaching philosophy that favors simplicity over complexity and aims to shape his students’ thinking by improving their reasoning abilities.
“I try to keep it simple. I would rather err on the side of emphasizing fewer fundamental concepts rather than a larger number of topics or applications,” Clemens said. “I want them to develop the skill to reason things out by thinking about the physics. I want to give them the necessary tools and a foundation to solve more complex problems.”
Clemens teaches both undergraduate and graduate students. During his time at UT, Clemens has developed two graduate courses that were previously not taught – ASE 382R and ASE 396.
ASE 382R, Optical Diagnostics for Gas Flows, is a course that emphasizes applications of laser diagnostics for the measurement of flow properties of interest in aerodynamics and combustion, such as velocity, concentration, pressure and temperature.
ASE 396, Turbulent Mixing and Combustion, was introduced a few years ago and represented a great deal of hard work from Clemens. Because the course is an eclectic mix of topics for which no textbook adequately covered the material, Clemens opted to use supplementary reading material including six different textbooks, journal articles, instructor notes and websites.
Though the graduate course material is more difficult, Clemens says teaching undergraduate students is more challenging.
Following his Compressible Flow class, Dr. Noel Clemens answers questions from individual students to help clarify concepts.
“Graduate students are more motivated toward learning the material,” Clemens said. “Many undergraduate students, however, intrinsically don’t care about the subject matter. I spend a lot of time motivating them about why they need to learn about the subject I am teaching. As a teacher you have to show them why the material matters and try to get them to care about the topic.”
According to ASE senior Tyler Franklin, Clemens’ genuine investment in his students results in a return investment from his students.
“Dr. Clemens stands out from other professors due to his amicable demeanor: he converses with his students as if they were his peers and encourages them to approach him at any time,” Franklin said. “The trait of mutual respect coupled with the passion he exhibits for the subject of supersonic flow encourages student participation and allows students to easily become invested in the subject matter as well.”
Furthermore, for some students, Clemens’ passion creates not only interest but instills a passion.
“Dr. Clemens is the first professor that has taught so effectively that I looked forward to the subject matter I would learn while tackling the homework,” Franklin said. “Dr. Clemens has transformed my interest in fluid dynamics into a passion.”
Clemens continues to inspire both current and former students – many of which have gone on to lead their own successful careers. Dr. Steven Beresh (PhD ’99), a research engineer at Sandia National Laboratories who did his PhD under Clemens, says his years of working with him set the stage for his career of running a complex research lab.
“The relationship he forms with his students isn’t one based on his authority, but rather, he inspires his students with his enthusiasm, his innovative ideas, his unmatched work ethic, and of course, his ever-present goofy humor,” Beresh said. “You will find no professor more highly regarded by his students – or even students not his own.”
Clemens, who is also an active researcher, acknowledges his own limitations.
“I realized early on that it is a challenge to balance the time spent on the different aspects of my job: teaching, research and service,” Clemens said. “Because of other demands on my time, it is just not possible to devote all the time that is required to make a new course as good as I would like, and so I improve things incrementally. Each semester I improve some aspect of the course, such as the examples I use or demonstrations that I give, and over time I can develop a pretty good course.”
Though Clemens continues to have a profound impact on his students, he didn’t always know he wanted to become a professor.
“When I began getting my PhD, I didn’t think I would end up in a university setting,” Clemens said. “But as time passed, I realized that I would enjoy the freedom of doing independent research and working with students.”
Through his experience, Clemens has a word of advice to pass on to students.
“Students think they have certain interests right now. They think because they’re doing space applications, for example, they shouldn’t be interested in fluid mechanics,” Clemens said. “But the reality is they don’t know what they’ll be doing in ten years. A broad undergraduate education is always better than a narrow one. Jobs change, the economy changes – don’t get too pigeon-holed in a certain area.”
