AAE Professor, Stephen Heister named new Director of Maurice J. Zucrow Labs
| Event Date: | March 7, 2011 |
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Raisbeck Engineering Distinguished Professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stephen Heister has accepted the position as the new Director of the Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories, effective March 1, 2011. In this position, Dr. Heister will also have a 0.25 appointment at Purdue's School of Mechanical Engineering. We look forward to Dr. Heister's leadership in making an already outstanding MJZ Labs achieve even greater impact.
Dr. Heister graduated with a B.S.E. in Aerospace Engineering from The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1981. He stayed at Michigan and obtained his M.S.E. degree in 1983. He obtained his Ph. D. from UCLA in 1988. Between 1981 and 1990, he garnered work experience in both turbomachinery and rocket propulsion systems at LockheedCalifornia Company in Burbank, CA and The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, CA. During his seven-year tenure at Aerospace, he served in the Propulsion Department and as a manager of the Propulsion Technology Section from 1988-1990. Dr. Heister joined Purdue University in 1990. While at Purdue, he was a Faculty Scholar and has won the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics E. F. Bruhn departmental teaching award four times. In 2003, he was named as the director of the Rolls-Royce University Technology Center in High Mach Propulsion. The High Mach UTC has focused on thermal management strategies during its entire 8-year existence and has contributed in such areas as fuel coking, endothermic fuel development,fuel/air heat exchanger design and performance, evaluation of coking-resistant coatings, supercritical fuel injection, and combustion of high temperature/supercritical fuels. In October 2010, Dr. Heister was named to the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Heister’s researchinterests span a broad range of propulsion disciplines, and he has over 200journal and conference publications spanning a wide array of topics including: atomization, injector simulations, hybrid and liquid rocket combustion, pulse detonation engines, gas turbine and rocket nozzles, fuel-based heat exchangers, and propulsion system design. Dr. Heister has advised 20 Ph.D. and 49 M.S. students, most of whom have assumed leadership roles within the U.S. aerospace propulsion industry. He is an active member of AIAA and has served on several Technical Committees and as associated editor for the Journal of Propulsion and Power.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Heister on this appointment and welcoming him to his new role.