Mechanical Engineering Professor receives national award

June 10, 2003

Mechanical Engineering Professor receives national award

University of New Mexico Mechanical Engineering Professor Ken Christensen has received a 2003 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). There were 89 applications and 24 awards were made.

The awards provide seed money for research by junior faculty at ORAU member institutions. These awards are intended to enrich the research and professional growth of young faculty and result in new funding opportunities.

Christensen’s research interests include structural representations of turbulence, spatial and temporal effects of roughness in wall turbulence, experimental validation/development of LES subgrid-scale models, structural contributions to turbulence statistics, structure-based control of turbulence, particle-image velocimetry (PIV), particle-image accelerometry (PIA), development of experimental methods densely-packed granular flows and reactive/detonation flow systems.

He recieved his Ph.D. in theoretical and applied mechanics from the University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill., 2001 and his master’s in mechanical engineering for California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif, in 1996. He received his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from UNM in 1995.

He has received numerous awards including being nominated for the Andreas Acrivos Dissertation Prize in Fluid Mechanics from the American Physical Society. He received the Stanley J. Weiss Outstanding Thesis Award from the University of Illinois, Urbana; Larson Graduate Fellowship from the University of Illinois, Urbana; SURGE Fellowship; Clark B. Millikan Fellowship and Special Institute Fellowship from the California Institute of Technology; National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship; Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship (declined); George Breece Prize for highest GPA in UNM School of Engineering 1995 graduating class.

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