The Department of Aerospace Engineering would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Prof. Chris Fidkowski’s promotion to full professor with tenure, effective September 1, 2021.
Fidkowski teaches courses in Aerodynamics, Numerical Methods, and Computational Fluid Dynamics. He has been a member of the faculty at U-M since 2008. As a faculty member, he served as the graduate program chair for several years and currently leads the committee on honors and awards for aerospace students. Fidkowski’s research interests include space-time adaptive methods, numerical error estimation, mesh adaptation and optimization, and uncertainty quantification. His work focuses on the development of scalable and adaptive solution techniques for computational fluid dynamics, with application to practical problems in aerospace engineering.
Previously, he was a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he co-taught courses in Aerodynamics and Computational Methods for Aerospace Engineering. He received Bachelor of Science degrees in Physics and Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then went on to receive his Master of Science and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Prof. Fidkowski was the recipient of the Vulcan’s Education Excellence Award in 2017, the Department of Energy Office of Science Early Career Research Program Award in 2013, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award in 2010, and the Sigma Gamma Tau Silver Shaft Teaching Award in 2011 and 2015.
“Chris is a world leader in computational fluid dynamics and its applications to resolve the fine details of air flow over vehicles,” said Aerospace Engineering Chair Tony Waas. “He has developed new methods of analysis that are finding their way to industry codes. His work has attracted interest from several leading aerospace companies, including Boeing and Airbus.”
Waas added: “Chris is one of the best instructors in the department and always takes pleasure in instructing both undergraduates and graduate students. His service for many years as Graduate chair has led to many desirable changes to our graduate program. I am delighted to congratulate Chris for being promoted to Full Professor of Aerospace Engineering.”
