Ronald L. Panton

Ronald L. Panton is the J. H. Herring Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. After receiving a BA degree in Mathematics and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Wichita State University, he practiced five years in industry. His first employment was at North American Aviation followed by active duty with the Air Force where he was assigned to the X-15 Research Plane project at Wright-Patterson AFB. Subsequently, he studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), M.S. and the University of California (Berkeley), Ph.D. Following graduation he was a professor at Oklahoma State University, 1966-71, and then the University of Texas at Austin, 1971-present. He has served on the committees of the ASME, the AIAA, and the American Physical Society as well as a term as associate editor of the Journal of Fluids Engineering. In 1991 a French fellowship allowed him a sabbatical at Ecole Centrale de Lyon. He was designated as an NATO-AGARD lecturer in 1994, and in 1998 a visiting scholar at Ecole Centrale de Lille. He authored the textbook "Incompressible Flow", which is in its third edition, and in print for over twenty years. He edited a monograph "Self-Sustaining Mechanisms of Wall Turbulence." His research has been in a variety of fluid flow topics from acoustic -flow interactions to molten solder behavior. Much of his work in turbulent flow is summarized in his review article "Review of Wall Turbulence Described by Composite Expansions", in Applied Mechanics Reviews.