by Marci E. Hersh

Simon Ostrach, the Wilbert J. Austin Distinguished Professor of Engineering at CWRU and director of the National Center for Microgravity Research on Fluids and Combustion based at CWRU and NASA Glenn Research Center, has a passion for weightlessness in space.

Simon Ostrach

He has completed 14 flights aboard NASA's exclusive KC-135, a modified Boeing 707, four-engine turbojet used to flight test during short periods of microgravity and this year, he expects to fly aboard the coveted craft again and become the oldest person ever to do so.

Ostrach has been awarded the Frank and Dorothy Humel Hovorka Prize for his exceptional achievements.

The Hovorka Prize was created by Dorothy Humel Hovorka, a member of CWRU's Board of Trustees, whose late husband, served for many years as a distinguished faculty member of the CWRU chemistry department. The prize recognizes a CWRU faculty member whose exceptional achievements in teaching, research and scholarly service have benefited local, national and global communities.

Ostrach received the prize for his outstanding contributions to microgravity transport phenomena research, significant contributions to NASA's aeronautics program and his role as an outstanding educator. He will be the eighth winner of the prize, which is accompanied by a $5,000 award.

Ostrach's career as an engineer, scholar, scientist, teacher, author and University leader on microgravity research in space spans five decades. He is a double alumnus of the University of Rhode Island, having received his bachelor's degree in science in mechanical engineering in 1944 and his master's degree in engineering in 1949. He received two degrees in applied mathematics from Brown University-the Sc.M. in 1949 and doctorate in 1950.

He joined the Case Institute of Technology (now the Case School of Engineering) in 1960 as a professor of engineering and in 1960 was appointed head of the Division of Fluid, Thermal and Aerospace Sciences. Before that, he was an aeronautical research scientist for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, a research associate at Brown University and chief of the fluid physics branch at the former NASA Lewis Research Center now NASA Glenn. In 1970, Ostrach was named the Wilbert J. Austin chair and Distinguished Professor of Engineering.

In 1993, NASA awarded Ostrach its Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest honor NASA confers on someone who is not employed by the government. He was honored for his extensive contributions to NASA space science, including pioneering research in the behavior of fluids in low gravity, public advocacy of U.S. efforts to conduct science experiments in space and the development of two successful space experiments.

Ostrach was the principal investigator of the surface tension driven convection experiment conducted on board the United States Microgravity Laboratory-I (USML-1) in 1992 and USML-2 in 1995. The experiments collected scientific data on the convective flows created by the surface tension of fluids in a low-gravity environment.

He served two, four-year terms as home secretary of the National Academy of Engineering and is a member of its program advisory board. He also was a member of the National Research Council Board of Governors and has been a member of its executive committee, the space studies board committee and its executive committee and a member of the Ohio Science and Engineering Round Table, among others.

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology awarded Ostrach an honorary doctorate in 1986. He also received honorary doctorates from Florida State University in 1994, the University of Rhode Island in 1995 and Brown University in 1997. In 2001, Ostrach was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was inducted into the academy as part of a class of 185 fellows, along with 26 foreign honorary members from 15 nations.

 

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