Current Position:
Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University.

Professional Background:
John M. Cimbala received his BS degree in Aerospace Engineering in 1979 from The Pennsylvania State University . From there he went to The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he obtained his MS degree in 1980 and his Ph.D. degree in 1984, both in Aeronautics, and both under the direction of Professor Anatol Roshko. His Ph.D. thesis was entitled, Large Structure in the Far Wakes of Two-Dimensional Bluff Bodies.

In July of 1984, Dr. Cimbala returned to Penn State as Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering . In July of 1990, he was promoted to Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and was granted tenure. In July of 1997, he was promoted to Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

During the academic year 1993-94, Professor Cimbala took a sabbatical leave from the University, and worked at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA, where he advanced his knowledge of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and turbulence modeling.

During the academic year 2002-03, Professor Cimbala took a sabbatical leave from the University, and worked on writing an undergraduate fluid mechanics textbook, “Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications”, Y. A. Çengel and J. M. Cimbala, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2006.

During the academic year 2010-11, Professor Cimbala took a sabbatical leave from the University, and worked at Americah Hydro in York, PA, where he used CFD to model large hydroturbines (used at hydroelectric dams).