On Jupiter, polar cyclones shaped like sawblades and spirals swirl and lightning flashes above a deep and essentially bottomless atmosphere. Meanwhile, about 500 million miles away in Houghton, Michigan, six inches of lake effect snow falls with barely a predicting blip on the radar. Shawn Brueshaber wants to learn more about both of these intriguing phenomena, and if they have more in common than we think.
One wouldn’t expect to find a planetary atmospheric scientist in an engineering department, but Brueshaber holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering. He draws on his engineering background every day.
From a mechanical and aerospace engineering perspective, it’s all fluid mechanics, says Brueshaber. “The only difference is we’re not playing around in, say, a jet turbine. We’re studying fluid mechanics on a rotating spherical body over a very large scale—in the thousands and thousands of kilometers.”