Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Writer: Shanna Relford
news@utsi.edu
University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI) Professor Joe
Majdalani and Graduate Research Assistant Tony Saad spent six weeks
in China this summer collaborating with scientists at Peking
University (PKU) in Beijing. After about 12 hours confined to their
seats on the plane, Majdalani and Saad arrived in Beijing on June 20
to a warm welcoming committee and a sweltering heat wave.
The pair of UTSI representatives were escorted to their hotel and
later treated to a dinner hosted by Zhen-Su She, the director of
PKU’s State Key Laboratory for Turbulence Research, where Majdalani
and Saad would be working. “I was struck by the tradition and
respect that is so ingrained in Chinese culture,” said Dr. Majdalani.
“The relationship of guest and host is still very formalized there
and I found it wonderful the way they greeted us at the airport,
treated us to a welcome dinner and made a special trip to see us and
say goodbye on our final day,” he added.
The trip was funded by an International Research and Education in
Engineering (IREE) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF)
that Dr. Majdalani had won last year. “While the budget for this
program [IREE] is less than one percent of NSF’s budget, the impact
is staggering,” said Dr. Majdalani. According to Majdalani, the IREE
program is increasing NSF’s presence internationally by sending
roughly 200- 300 U.S. scientists to locations all over the world to
learn what other countries are doing and bring the best of science
and knowledge from around the world back to the U.S. The program is
designed for cross-fertilization; other nations value the visits
from American scientists not only to learn from our current
developments, but also as an opportunity to sharpen their English
language skills. Dr. Majdalani stated that he is deeply grateful for
the support received from Drs. Win Aung and Eduardo Misawa with the
National Science Foundation.
Both Majdalani and Saad were excited about the chance to work in
Beijing with the elite faculty and students of Peking University.
“PKU is the MIT of China,” said Dr. Majdalani. “PKU’s Mechanical
Engineering Department is very strong in the field of thermo-fluids,
which forms the foundation of propulsion, a research area heavily
pursued at UTSI,” he explained. According to Dr. Majdalani, PKU’s
reputation as a very prestigious school stems in large part from its
admissions process. In China, everyone must take a national exam and
only the most exceptional scores will be accepted at PKU. These
individuals are considered the elite of the country, regardless of
background, wealth or lack thereof.
Saad said of the trip, “On the intellectual level, I had the
opportunity to meet some of the best scientists in China and a
plethora of hard working researchers who participated in our
collaborative efforts.” He went on, “I was impressed by the strong
sense of teamwork that the professors and their students showed. The
graduate students are very skilled in their areas of research in
addition to having a very strong background in mathematics.”
While in China, Professor Jie-Zhi Wu presented Dr. Majdalani with
the Pei-Yuan Chou Commemorate Plaque for his outstanding
contribution in the field of Fluid Mechanics. “I was immensely
honored to receive this award named for the founder of PKU,” said
Dr. Majdalani. “I really wasn’t expecting it.” Dr. Majdalani
presented two full-day short courses on Modeling of Unsteady
Oscillatory Waves and Hybrid Core Flows and numerous two-hour
presentations to scientists, faculty and students from PKU, several
other colleges, universities and local industry. Saad also gave a
presentation of his own, in addition to assisting Dr. Majdalani with
the many presentations that he gave at the request of their Chinese
hosts.
A symbiotic venture, Majdalani and Saad also benefited from learning
about the work that is being done at PKU. “Dr. She, the director of
the lab, is a multi-dimensional individual and a tremendously
important figure in the world of turbulence,” said Dr. Majdalani.
“He was coaching the Chinese Olympic Kayaking Team while we were
there and he has recently written a book on how to coach using
principles of turbulence and engineering to help kayakers understand
the movements of water.” “A lot of what they are working on there is
fundamental physics,” said Dr. Majdalani, “the kind of basic science
that ends up being taught in textbooks.” “They’re really in an
enviable situation as they’re funded by the government, so they’re
not tied down to answering a specific problem for a company and they
don’t have proprietary information, everything is open literature,”
Majdalani explained.
Professor Jie-Zhi Wu spent one entire day presenting the work of his
research team. Professor Wu, a part-time professor for both UTSI and
PKU, is termed a “flying professor” in China, since he spends six
months of the year in Beijing and the other half in the U.S. Drs.
Majdalani and Wu hope to write research papers together and have
made plans to collaborate in several research areas. In fact, they
hope to draft a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between PKU and
UTSI to allow professors from both universities to share information
and to pursue the possibility of securing funding for collaborative
projects from the Chinese government and NSF. PKU’s Dean of
Engineering Shi-Yi Chen plans to visit UTSI in November when
Professor Wu is back in the States to follow-up on the MOU process.
Majdalani and Saad left Beijing just one short week before the city
flooded with visitors for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. “The trip
to China was a very rich experience in my career on both
intellectual and cultural levels,” said Saad. “I had the chance to
learn about the history of China as well as the social practices of
the Chinese people. I also acquired some language skills since I had
a daily "hands-on" crash course in Mandarin Chinese: from going to
the cafeteria to buying groceries and asking for directions! The
most important part was learning how to count, which allowed me to
bargain more effectively.” Dr. Majdalani stated that the trip was
well worth the time invested and the prospect for continued
collaborations between UTSI and PKU is strong.
Dr. Majdalani is shown here accepting the
Pei-Yuan Chou Commemorate Plaque from Professor Jie-Zhi Wu for his
outstanding contribution in the field of Fluid Mechanics. Dr.
Majdalani received this award during his recent trip to Peking
University in Beijing, where he gave several presentations on his
research in core flow theory. Dr. Majdalani serves as the H.H.
Arnold Chair of Excellence in Advanced Propulsion at UTSI.
--UTSI Photo by Tony Saad
UTSI’s Professor Majdalani (above right) and
Graduate Research Assistant Tony Saad are shown above working
together on one of the many research presentations Dr. Majdalani
gave during their recent trip to Peking University in Beijing.
--Photo Provided
UTSI’s Professor Majdalani and Graduate
Research Assistant Tony Saad spent six weeks in China this summer at
Peking University in Beijing working with some of China’s most
brilliant scientists. Seated above from left to right are PKU
Professors Yi-Peng Shi and Jie-Zhi Wu, UTSI Graduate Student Tony
Saad, PKU Dean of Engineering Shi-Yi Chen, UTSI Professor Joe
Majdalani and PKU Professors Jian-Ping Wang and Jian-Jun Tao.
-- Photo Provided
