Toshi Kubota Lecture in Aerospace

This lecture is given to honor the memory of Toshi Kubota (1927-'99), Professor of Aeronautics and a faculty member of GALCIT from 1959 to 1990. He made pioneering contributions in the field of fluid mechanics, focusing on topics such as hypersonic wake flows, supersonic turbulent shear flows, and supersonic boundary layer separation.

The Toshi Kubota Lecture is made possible through a generous gift from Caltech Alumni Drs. Jain-Ming (James) Wu (MS'59, PHD'65 Ae) and Ying-Chu Lin (Susan) Wu (PHD'63 Ae) who carried out their doctoral research in GALCIT. Through this lecture they honor a professor who has made significant impact in their lives.

Date: Friday, February 8, 2013, 3:00–4:00 PM
Location: 101 Guggenheim Lab, Lees-Kubota Lecture Hall
Speaker: Ian A. Waitz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

View the lecture featuring Ian Waitz

Environmental Impacts of Aviation

The environmental impacts of aviation–climate change, surface air quality, and community noise–result from complex, uncertain relationships among physical phenomena, technology, operations, policies, and personal behavior. The talk will provide an overview of some of the important relationships. Quantitative estimates of the magnitude of the environmental impacts of aviation will be presented, and key scientific and policy uncertainties will be identified. A particular focus will be on the challenges and opportunities for using such estimates for informing policy-making processes.

Ian A. Waitz

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ian A. Waitz is Dean of the School of Engineering, the Jerome C. Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Waitz has made advances in gas turbine engines, fluid mechanics, combustion, and acoustics. The principal focus of his current work is on the modeling and evaluation of climate, the air-quality and noise impacts of aviation, and the assessment of technological, operational, and policy options for mitigating these impacts. He is the Director of the Partnership for AiR Transportation Noise and Emissions Reduction (PARTNER), an FAA, NASA, DOD, EPA and Transport Canada-sponsored Center of Excellence. Waitz has contributed to several influential policy documents and scientific assessments including a report to the U.S. Congress on aviation and the environment. In 2003, he received a NASA Turning Goals Into Reality Award for Noise Reduction, and in 2007 he was awarded the FAA Excellence in Aviation Research Award. Waitz received his BS in 1986 from the Pennsylvania State University, his MS in 1988 from George Washington University, and his PhD in 1991 from the California Institute of Technology. He has been on the faculty at MIT since 1991 and was appointed dean in 2011.