Dean Roden Chapman (8 March 1922 – 4 October 1995) was a
mechanical engineer at the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding th ...
(NASA) and at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
.
Biography
He played basketball for the oft-maligned
Caltech Beavers
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
men's basketball team while he got a B.S. from Caltech. He began his professional career at
Ames Aeronautical Laboratory (now the
Ames Research Center) in 1948, where he later became Director of
Astronautics. He left government service in 1980 to join the faculty at Stanford University. At the time of his death from cancer at age 73, he was Professor Emeritus of the Department of Aeronautics and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Chapman was internationally known for his research into
fluid dynamics
In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) an ...
, and for pioneering modern computational fluid dynamics. He is also remembered for his research and controversial theories on the origin of
tektites.
External resources
*
Obituary archive at Stanford University
1922 births
1995 deaths
American mechanical engineers
American aerospace engineers
Engineering educators
Stanford University faculty
California Institute of Technology alumni
American scientists
20th-century American engineers
Deaths from cancer in California
{{US-academic-scientist-stub