Newswise — Massachusetts Institute of Technology W. H. Dow Professor Howard Brenner will be a featured speaker at Clarkson University's 111th Commencement on Sunday, May 9.
Brenner will address the nearly 600 Clarkson students who will be granted bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees that day.
He will also receive an honorary degree from Clarkson for his outstanding achievements during a distinguished half-century career as a chemical engineer, and for his boldness in questioning the most basic assumptions of continuum fluid mechanics.
In September of this year, Brenner, will begin his 50th year as a faculty member in Chemical Engineering. His research and educational activities have been honored by numerous awards from professional societies, including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Chemical Society, and the American Society of Engineering Education. Most recently, he received the "Fluid Dynamics Prize" of the American Physical Society. He is one a small group of scientists and engineers elected not only to both the National Academies of Science and Engineering, but also to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Brenner's theoretical skills and interests focus on the physical and mathematical principles underlying the flow of fluids, including the scientific laws governing the transport of momentum, energy, and chemical species through liquids and gases. Most recently, his work has questioned the very foundations of these subjects, dating back 250 years to Leonhard Euler, the "father" of fluid mechanics. Brenner's current foundational effort impacts on the validity of the celebrated Navier-Stokes equations, universally regarded as sacrosanct since 1845 as mathematically quantifying the flow of viscous fluids. Brenner says he awaits the verdict of his skeptical peers with bemused (although not detached) interest.
Brenner's other work is largely summarized and embodied in three novel monographs-cum-textbooks in his field. A fourth book is underway, tentatively titled Fluid Mechanics Revisited, which reflects his current questioning of the foundations of his discipline.
Brenner was born, raised and educated in New York City, receiving degrees from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and New York University in the Bronx.
Clarkson University, located in Potsdam, New York, is an independent technological university with a reputation for developing innovative leaders in technology-based fields. Its academically rigorous, collaborative culture involves 2,700 undergraduates and 350 graduate students in hands-on team projects, multidisciplinary research, and real-world challenges. Many faculty members achieve international recognition for their scholarship and research, and teaching is a priority at every level. For more information, visit http://www.clarkson.edu.
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