Werner Dahm, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the School for the Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, is leading a unique, university-wide initiative aimed at developing solutions to national and global security issues.
The Security & Defense Systems Initiative (SDSI) brings together transdisciplinary expertise—engineering, social scientists and legal experts—to devise technology-enabled solutions, address legal and policy implications and social root causes that underlie security issues.
Dahm says that ASU “is one of the few places where a collaborative effort to focus on problems of such a big scope is even possible.”
Dahm provided an overview of SDSI to faculty and staff at the Town Hall last week: Dahm_SDSI_Scope
Dahm joined ASU in November 2010 from the U.S. Air Force, where he had been chief scientist for the past two years. The Air Force recently bestowed its highest award for civilians, the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, on Dahm.
He was a member of the engineering faculty at the University of Michigan since 1985, where he became a professor of aerospace engineering in 1997 and head of the Laboratory for Turbulence and Combustion.
His primary research and teaching focus has been fluid dynamics, turbulent flows, combustion and propulsion. He holds several U.S. patents in these areas.
He earned his Ph.D. in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Tennessee Space Institute, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
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