Turbo Lab Veteran Takes Over As Director – Take Five With Eric Petersen

There’s a new, yet familiar face at the head of the Turbomachinery Laboratory – Eric Petersen. Petersen, an 11-year veteran of the Turbo Lab, took over the reins after Dara W. Childs retired from the post in January 2018. The Turbo Lab serves as one of the education and networking arms of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), which is part of the Texas A&M University System.

Petersen is the Nelson-Jackson professor at Texas A&M University’s J. Mike Walker ‘66 Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. His research covers a wide range of topics, such as gas dynamics, propulsion, combustion, rocket combustion, chemical kinetics, optical diagnostics and spectroscopy, laminar and turbulent flames, and shock waves.

Petersen has penned more than 400 journals and conference papers on these topics. He also serves as the vice president of the Institute for Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems (IDERS), as an associate editor for two engineering journals, and is a member of three engineering societies, including the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He also has three mechanical engineering degrees.

As the Turbo Lab’s director, Petersen is responsible for overseeing all the operations of the Turbo Lab and the Symposia office, including industry and government-sponsored research, education and workforce development initiatives.

What goes into the role of being the director of the Turbo Lab?

I help guide the staff and the Turbo Lab to make the right choices. Stepping into this role, I don’t want to mess things up that are already working.

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This story first appeared in the August-September 2019 issue of COMPRESSORTECH². We only publish a fraction of our magazine content online, so for more great content, get every issue in your inbox/mailbox and access to our digital archives with a free subscription. Click here for a new subscription or here to renew your current subscription.