Clarence Rowley

Professor Rowley's research interests lie at the intersection of dynamical systems, control theory, and fluid mechanics, and focus on reduced-order models suitable for analysis and control design.  The broad theme of his work is to obtain simple mathematical models for complex systems (particularly those involving fluids), using data from simulations or experiments.  He has used these models to better understand the underlying physical phenomena, and in many cases to develop feedback control laws, in applications such as cavity flows, transitional boundary layers, unsteady aerodynamics, and plasmas in tokamaks.

Professor Rowley teaches courses in control theory, dynamical systems, and applied mathematics.  He is an affiliated faculty member with the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, and teaches a number of courses in that program, including a course he developed in software engineering for scientific computing that has attracted students from many departments across campus.

He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton, and his doctoral degree from Caltech, both in Mechanical Engineering.  His awards include an NSF CAREER award and an AFOSR Young Investigator Award, as well as several teaching awards.

He co-authored the second edition of the monograph "Turbulence, Coherent Structures, Dynamical Systems, and Symmetry" with Philip Holmes, which appeared in 2012.  He served as managing editor for the Journal of Nonlinear Science from 2006 to 2010, and continues to serve on the editorial board of the Journal of Nonlinear Science, the Journal of Computational Dynamics, and AIAA Journal, as well as two Springer book series: Frontiers in Applied Dynamical Systems, and Surveys and Tutorials in the Applied Mathematical Sciences.