Interview with USC Professor and former Astronaut, Dr. Paul Ronney
Today’s interview is with Professor Paul Ronney from University of Souther California.
Here are the questions that Paul, very kindly, agreed to discuss with me during this interview. (If you are having trouble listening to the interview, simply install a Quicktime plug-in for your web browser).
Prof. Paul D. Ronney is a Professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA.
He received his Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the MIT. He was the Payload Specialist Astronaut (Alternate) for Space Shuttle mission MSL-1 (STS-83, April 4 - 8, 1997) and the reflight of this mission (STS-94, July 1 - 16, 1997).
Professor Ronney has extensive research experience in micro-scale combustion, premixed flame ignition by pulsed corona discharges,propagating fronts in motile bacteria, turbulent combustion, edge flames, flame propagation in confined geometries (Hele-Shaw cells), internal combustion engines, premixed-gas combustion at microgravity, flame spread over solid fuel beds, and radiatively-driven flows and heat transfer.
Prof. Ronney has published over 70 technical papers in peer-reviewed journals, made over 150 technical presentations, holds four U.S. patents with several others pending, and has received over $10 million in funding for his research projects. He is an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member of Combustion Theory and Modelling, Combustion and Flame, Microgravity Science and Technology, Micromachines and Progress in Energy and Combustion Science.
This is a 25 minute interview. Simply click on the Play button to listen.
Masha, this was a very intriguing interview for me. I enjoyed it a lot. My own thinking aligns with Professor Ronney’s philosophy of experimenter first, modeling second. Or modeling to explain the observed phenomena, with the modeling pointing to further refinements in the experiments.
Keep up the fine work with your blog.