David Andereck grew up in Springfield, Missouri, where his early interest in amateur astronomy led him into becoming a physics major in college.  After graduating from Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) in 1974, he studied astrophysics for awhile at Princeton University, and then completed his doctorate in low temperature physics at Rutgers University in 1980.  His graduate work with Bill Glaberson concerned the experimental study of the hydrodynamics of rotating superfluid liquid helium.  While transferring helium into a cryostat at midnight on a Saturday has a certain appeal, he decided to switch research gears by moving into experimental room-temperature nonlinear fluid dynamics as a postdoc at the University of Texas at Austin.  In working there with Harry Swinney, he was introduced to the joys and fascinations of pattern formation, instabilities, chaos and the transition to turbulence in some simple fluid systems.  He continued this effort when he became a faculty member at Ohio State in 1983.  His work has covered many aspects of Taylor-Couette flow (the flow between rotating cylinders), Rayleigh-Bénard convection (temperature gradient induced flow of a horizontal layer of fluid), convection of water near its maximum density point, the use of ultrasound as a probe of the temperature field in a convecting liquid metal, noise-induced transitions in liquid crystal layers, and patterns in a polmer fluid climbing a rotating rod.  Switching research fields once again, he is currently beginning work in high energy density physics, with an emphasis on the interaction of ultra-high intensity laser light with matter.

Dave’s career at Ohio State includes a three year term as the Vice Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Physics, and fourteen years as an Associate Dean for curriculum and personnel for the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and the newly formed College of Arts and Sciences.

In his spare time Dave is an avid golfer, following in the footsteps of two-time Nobel laureate John Bardeen (see the cover of Physics Today from April, 1992)….