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Do-Chan Kwak
Chief of the Applications Branch, Advanced Supercomputing Division, NASA
Dr. Dochan Kwak has led a career spanning more than 28 years at NASA Ames Research Center. He has made unique contributions to advancing the state of the art in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology and has pioneered applications procedures for complex, real-world aerospace engineering problems for the U.S. space agency; notably, for the Space Shuttle main engine (SSME) Phase II+ redesign. This Block II engine redesigned in collaboration with Rocketdyne engineers first flew on Discovery’s 20th mission (STS-70) in July 1995 and used in all subsequent Shuttle missions. His important fundamental research in CFD methods for aerospace applications and his outstanding leadership in this discipline are well known and highly regarded by the international CFD and aerospace communities.
Concurrent with his CFD applications research in aerospace, Dr. Kwak has been engaged in pioneering biomedical research through the development of computational hemodynamics methods. Together with collaborators at NASA and Micromed Technologies, he extended his groundbreaking CFD technologies to developing the NASA-DeBakey Ventricular Assist Device (VAD), which has been implanted in over 400 end-stage heart patients to date. He was honored when NASA selected the NASA-DeBakey VAD as the agency’s Commercial Invention of the Year in 2002. Many related articles have appeared in the news media, magazines, and in K-12 educational materials. He has received many other honors, including NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1986, the first NASA Software of the Year award in 1994. He was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame in 1999, and was appointed as Ames associate Fellow in 2003.
For more than half of his career, he served as Chief of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division Applications Branch and its predecessors, and was appointed as Senior Technologist in modeling and simulation in 2007. He holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Seoul National University, and a Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University.
Concurrent with his CFD applications research in aerospace, Dr. Kwak has been engaged in pioneering biomedical research through the development of computational hemodynamics methods. Together with collaborators at NASA and Micromed Technologies, he extended his groundbreaking CFD technologies to developing the NASA-DeBakey Ventricular Assist Device (VAD), which has been implanted in over 400 end-stage heart patients to date. He was honored when NASA selected the NASA-DeBakey VAD as the agency’s Commercial Invention of the Year in 2002. Many related articles have appeared in the news media, magazines, and in K-12 educational materials. He has received many other honors, including NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1986, the first NASA Software of the Year award in 1994. He was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame in 1999, and was appointed as Ames associate Fellow in 2003.
For more than half of his career, he served as Chief of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division Applications Branch and its predecessors, and was appointed as Senior Technologist in modeling and simulation in 2007. He holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Seoul National University, and a Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University.
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