Leslie Gary Leal (born 18 March 1943) is the Warren & Katharine Schlinger Professor of Chemical Engineering at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

. He is known for his research work in the dynamics of

complex fluids Complex fluids are mixtures that have a coexistence between two phases: solid–liquid (suspensions or solutions of macromolecules such as polymers), solid–gas (granular), liquid–gas (foams) or liquid–liquid (emulsions). They exhibit unusual ...

. Leal was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

in 1987 for fundamental contributions to the understanding of the fluid mechanics of particulate systems, polymer solutions, and suspensions.

Career

Leal received his B.S. degree from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

in 1965, M.S. degree from the

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 ...

in 1968, and Ph.D. degree from the

in 1969; all in chemical engineering. His Ph.D. thesis advisor was

Andreas Acrivos Andreas Acrivos (born 13 June 1928) is the Albert Einstein Professor of Science and Engineering, Emeritus at the City College of New York. He is also the director of the Benjamin Levich Institute for Physicochemical Hydrodynamics. Education and c ...

. Leal started his academic career in 1970 as an assistant professor in chemical engineering at

California Institute of Technology 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 ...

. He became full professor in 1978. During 1986–1989, he was Chevron Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering. In 1989, Leal joined University of California, Santa Barbara as Professor and Chair in the Department of Chemical Engineering. He is currently the Warren and Katharine Schlinger Professor of Chemical Engineering at

UCSB The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

Research

Leal's research covers a wide range of topics in fluid dynamics, including the dynamics of complex fluids, such as polymeric liquids, emulsions, polymer blends, and liquid crystalline polymers. He also works on large-scale computer simulation of complex fluid flows. Leal and his coworkers made pioneering contributions to the study of drop deformation under different flow conditions. They have developed a scheme based on a

finite difference approximation A finite difference is a mathematical expression of the form . If a finite difference is divided by , one gets a difference quotient. The approximation of derivatives by finite differences plays a central role in finite difference methods for the ...

of the equations of motion, applied on a boundary-fitted orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system, inside and outside the drop. Leal has published more than 250 papers on

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 ...

. He has directed 55 Ph.D. thesis in various topics in fluid dynamics. Several of his students have gone on to become professors at prestigious universities including Howard Stone who is currently at Princeton and

Gerald Fuller Gerald Gendall Fuller (born April 7, 1953) is a Canadian/American chemical engineer and Fletcher Jones II Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. Fuller received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Calgary ...

at Stanford. Leal comes from a long line of researchers that can be traced back from mentor to mentor all the way to Sir Isaac Newton.

Editorships

From 1998–2015 he served as co-

Editor-in-Chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

Physics of Fluids ''Physics of Fluids'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering fluid dynamics, established by the American Institute of Physics in 1958, and is published by AIP Publishing. The journal focus is the dynamics of gases, liquids, and com ...

with John Kim.

Honors and awards

*Distinguished Scholar Lecturer, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering,

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

, October 2006 *

Fluid Dynamics Prize The Fluid Dynamics Prize is a prize that has been awarded annually by the American Physical Society (APS) since 1979. The recipient is chosen for "outstanding achievement in fluid dynamics research". The prize is currently valued at . In 2004, the ...

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

, 2002 *Highly Cited Researchers, Original Member, 100 Most Highly Cited Researchers in Engineering, ISI Thompson Scientific, 2001.ISI Highly Cited Author - L. Gary Leal
/ref> *

Bingham Medal The Bingham Medal is an annual award for outstanding contributions to the field of rheology awarded at the Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology. It was instituted in 1948 by the society to commemorate Eugene C. Bingham (1878–1945). List o ...

, The

Society of Rheology The Society of Rheology is an American professional society formed in December, 1929 to represent scientists and technologists working in the field of rheology, the science of the deformation and flow of matter. Current membership is of the order ...

, 2001 *Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Grant, 1975. *John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, 1976. *Allan Colburn Memorial Lectureship, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Delaware, 1978. *Allan Colburn Award - National AIChE, 1978. *Fellow of the

, 1984. *Chevron Distinguished Professor of Chem. Engineering, Caltech, April 1986-July 1989. *Member of the

(elected 1987). *

Stanley Corrsin Stanley Corrsin (3 April 1920 – 2 June 1986) was an American physicist, fluid dynamicist, and Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor of Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. He was known for his contributions in the field of fluid dynamics i ...

Lectureship in Fluid Mechanics, Dept. of Chem. Eng., The Johns Hopkins University, 1990. *Stanley Katz Memorial Lectureship in Chemical Engineering, Dept. of Chem. Eng., City College of the City University of New York, 1991. *Reilly Memorial Lectureship in Chemical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, April 1992. *Texas Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, University of Texas-Austin, March 1993. *William H. Walker Award for Excellence in Contributions to Chemical Engineering Literature, AIChE 1993. *Robert Pigford Lecturer, University of Delaware, April 1994. *Rothschild Visiting Professor, Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematics, University of Cambridge, U. K. January - March, 1996. *Julian C. Smith Lecturer, School of Chemical Engineering Cornell University April 1996. *Co-Editor-in-Chief,

, 1998-2015. *

NASA Group Achievement Award The NASA Group Achievement Award (GAA) is an award given by NASA to groups of government or non-government personnel in recognition of group accomplishments contributing to NASA's mission. The criteria for earning the Group Achievement Award are ...

for MSL-1 Project Team to L.G. Leal, June 30, 1999 *Rutgers Collaboratus X Lecturer, Dept. of Chem. and Biochemical Eng., Rutgers University, April, 2000. *George K. Batchelor Lecturer in Fluid Mechanics, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, UK, May, 2000. *NCE Cullimore Memorial Lecturer, NJIT, October 2001 *David M. Mason Lecturer, Dept. Chem. Eng., Stanford University, May 2004. *Pirkey Lectureship in Chemical Engineering, Univ. of Texas, April 2006 *W.N. Lacey Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, April 2008. *28th Annual Blue-Green Speaker, Depts. of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan and Michigan State University, November 2009.

Books

*L. G. Leal, ''Laminar Flow and Convective Transport Processes'',

Butterworth-Heinemann Butterworth–Heinemann is a British publishing company specialised in professional information and learning materials for higher education and professional training, in printed and electronic forms. It was formed in 1990 by the merger of Hein ...

, Stoneham, Massachusetts, 740 pages (1992). *L. G. Leal, ''Advanced Transport Phenomena: Fluid Mechanics and Convective Transport Processes'',

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

, New York (2007).

References

External links

*
Curriculum Vitae
of L. Gary Leal {{DEFAULTSORT:Leal, L. Gary Fluid dynamicists Stanford University alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Rheologists 1943 births Living people Fellows of the American Physical Society Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering American chemical engineers Physics of Fluids editors