Aerospace Engineering Experience at Iowa State University

DRC Sponsor: Cindy Schissel

Iowa State University Professor Emeritus and DRC member Jim Iversen will be speaking to our club on his experiences as a Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University. During his professional career Jim spent time working for both public and private enterprises. He was an Assistant Drawing Instructor (1952-1953) at Dana College, a Highway Inspector (1953) for the Iowa State Highway Commission, and an Engineering Assistant (1954, 1955) for both the Allison Transmission Corporation in Indianapolis and for Convair in Fort Worth, Texas. He worked as an Aerodynamicist for the Sandia Corp (1956) of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Douglas Aircraft Company (1958) before being hired by ISU as Assistant Professor (1959-1960) of Aerospace Engineering. At ISU he was promoted to Associate Professor (1960-1969), Professor (1969-1996), and also served as Chair (1987-1990) of the department. In the midst of his teaching duties he was also briefly employed as an Aerodynamicist at the NASA Ames Research Center (1973, 1974) and also for the Boeing Company (1978). He retired from teaching and was named Professor Emeritus in 1996.

Jim's main research areas include wind tunnels, Aeolian processes, aerodynamics, and geophysical fluid dynamics. Many of his published writings deal with Aeolian processes, or wind generated geologic processes, such as the drifting of snow and sand, sand storms, and wind-generated erosion. Of particular interest were his studies of the Aeolian processes taking place on the surface of the planet Mars. He is coauthor, with Ronald Greeley, of the book Wind as a Geological Process (on Earth, Mars, Venus and Titan) (call no. QE597 .G7 1985).