The Authors

We hope that you have enjoyed reading and learning from this book. If you have any questions or comments, you are most welcome to contact us at the addresses that appear in our website, http://www.engin.umich.edu/~fmche. Here is some information about ourselves.

James O. Wilkes

James O. Wilkes was born in Southampton, England, and lived in Shropshire during the Second World War. As a chemical engineering student at Emmanuel College, he obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Cambridge in 1955. The English-Speaking Union awarded him a King George VI Memorial Fellowship to the University of Michigan, from which he received a master’s degree in 1956 and a PhD in 1963. Also in chemical engineering, he was a faculty member at the University of Cambridge from 1956 to 1960, and at the University of Michigan from 1960 to 2000. At Michigan, he was department chairman from 1971 to 1977, and Assistant Dean for Admissions in the College of Engineering from 1989 to 1994. He was named an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor from 1989 to 1992. His research interests are in numerical methods, polymer processing, and computational fluid mechanics.

Professor Wilkes received his organ performance diploma, Associate of the Trinity College of Music (London), in 1951, and his Service-Playing Certificate from the American Guild of Organists in 1981. In addition to music, his hobbies include hiking in North Wales, New Zealand, and the American West; tennis; gardening; reading; and writing. He is author of Pipe Organs of Ann Arbor (1995), A Century of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan (2002), and coauthor of Applied Numerical Methods (Wiley, 1969) and Digital Computing and Numerical Methods (Wiley, 1973). He is currently editing his grandfather’s manuscript, Place Names of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Stacy G. Birmingham

Stacy G. Birmingham was born in Long Beach, CA. She received her BS, MS, and PhD degrees from Carnegie Mellon University. She is currently the Dean of the Albert A. Hopeman, Jr., School of Science and Engineering and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Grove City College in 2003, she was on the faculty of the chemical engineering department at the University of Michigan from 1998 to 2003, where she held joint appointments in both chemical engineering and the macromolecular science and engineering program. At Michigan, she received a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the ’38E Award for teaching, research, and service, and was Dow Corning Assistant Professor from 1989 to 1992.

Professor Birmingham’s research interests encompass the role of complex fluids in materials processing and biomimetics, including the design of ceramics and drugdelivery systems. She has published numerous articles and made more than 120 invited and contributed technical presentations in this area. Her teaching interests range from fluid mechanics and heat transfer to engineering graphics and design. She greatly enjoys spending time with her husband and three children, and her hobbies include skiing, running, and gardening.

Chi-Yang Cheng

Chi-Yang Cheng was born in Yang Ming Shan, Taiwan, the Republic of China. He received his bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan University, and MS and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Rhode Island. He was a faculty member at Grove City College in western Pennsylvania from 1991 to 2002. Currently he is with Fluent Incorporated in Lebanon, New Hampshire. His research interests include fluid dynamics, computational methods, and object oriented numerics/programming. He is a devoted user of Donald Knuth’s TEX and also Leslie Lamport’s LATEX implementation and its extensions for document preparation. In 1999, he used the skills to typeset a book of history of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945) written by his brother. His hobbies include hiking, gardening, reading, and enjoying classical music.

Brian J. Kirby

Brian J. Kirby joined the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University in August 2004, where he is an assistant professor and currently directs the Micro/Nanofluidics Laboratory. Previously, he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Microfluidics Department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California, where he worked from 2001 to 2004 on microfluidic systems, applied primarily to counterbioterrorism. From 1996 to 2001 he worked as a graduate student in the High Temperature Gasdynamics Laboratory at Stanford University, developing laser spectroscopy techniques for imaging gases in flames for applications in combustion and aerothermopropulsion. From 1994 to 1996 he worked as a graduate student in the Variable Gravity Research Laboratory at the University of Michigan, studying multi-phase heat-transfer processes; at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, CA, studying fluid mechanics processes in hard-drive stacks; and in the Gas Dynamics Research laboratories in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Michigan, studying soot formation processes in low-pressure diffusion flames.

Prof. Kirby has taught in various capacities in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at Cornell, the Mechanical Engineering Department at Stanford, and the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. His degrees are: PhD 2001, Stanford University, Mechanical Engineering; MSE 1996, University of Michigan, Mechanical Engineering; and BSE 1994, University of Michigan, Aerospace Engineering.