Celebrating employee milestones: honoring years of dedication and service

Rainald Löhner joined George Mason as an associate professor in 1993, became full professor in 1995 and a distinguished professor in 2004. He was the head of the fluid and materials program in the school of computational sciences from 2003-2006 and is the head of the center for computational fluid dynamics since 2006. His interests encompass numerical methods, solvers, parallel computing, and fluid-structure interactions. He has authored over 800 articles and a textbook on Applied CFD Techniques. A fellow of the International Association for Computational Mechanics, he has received multiple awards, including the Beck Family Presidential Medal and an honorary doctorate from TU Braunschweig.

Jagadish Shukla joined George Mason University in 1994. A trailblazer in the Mason community, Shukla was the founding chair of the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences, as well as the founding director of the Climate Dynamics PhD program. He is the Managing Director of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA), which he founded 30 years ago. He advocated for and coined the name Institute for a Sustainable Earth at George Mason. His remarkable career has had a global impact, from establishing a scientific basis for seasonal prediction beyond weather to modernizing India’s weather and climate enterprise. He was a lead author of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore. In addition, Shukla established a Doctoral Fellowship Endowment which perpetually supports climate dynamics PhD students. 

David Wong joined George Mason University in 1993, promoted from assistant to associate, and full professor in 2008. Since arriving Mason, he has taught all levels of geography courses over the past three decades. Trained as a geographer, Wong was among the pioneers integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with spatial statistical methods. He explores broad research areas, ranging from the technical area in geovisualization, to the more social-oriented issue in spatial epidemiology and aging. His primary research interests are in spatial analysis and statistics, and population analysis, particularly in measuring segregation. He has published widely: edited two books, co-authored three books, 13 book-chapters and approximately 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He has received research funding supports from NSF, NIH, HUD, and U.S. Census Bureau. He has served on the editorial boards of a number of international journals in GIS, spatial analysis and population studies. 

Chi Yang joined Mason in 1994 and is now a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, specializing in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with a focus on marine hydrodynamics. As Principal Investigator on numerous Office of Naval Research grants, she led the development of SimDShip, a tool for innovative, simulation-based ship hull design. She is also deeply involved in creating new academic programs and developing new courses, contributing to the growth of the university. With over 200 publications and many invited talks worldwide, Dr. Yang is highly respected in her field and has received multiple awards. As a dedicated mentor, she actively supports the career development of junior faculty and PhD students.