Penner, S. S.

Physical engineer and UCSD professor known for his research in combustion, energy, applied spectroscopy, and thermophysics. Penner was the founding chair of UCSD's Dept. of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Sciences and also served as the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs (1968-1969).

Biography

Born in Unna, Germany, on July 5, 1921, Stanford Solomon Penner (often known as "Sol") came to the United States in 1936, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1943. He attended Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he earned a B.S. in chemistry (1942), and the University of Wisconsin, where he earned an M.S. (1943) and a Ph.D. (1946) in physical chemistry. Penner's graduate work was interrupted for a time in 1944-45 when he went to work full time in rocket research at Allegany Ballistics Laboratory as part of the war effort.

From 1947 to 1964, S. S. Penner worked at the California Institute of Technology, first as a senior research assistant in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, then as a professor of jet propulsion. During a leave of absence from 1962 to 1964, Penner served as the director of the Research and Engineering Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington, D.C. In 1964 Penner began his association with the University of California, San Diego, where he was founding chair of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Sciences (AMES). At UCSD, Penner was a professor of engineering physics until his retirement in 1991, as well as Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs (1968-69), director of the Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Sciences (1968-71) and director of the Center for Energy and Combustion Research (1974-90). His major areas of research were combustion and energy, applied spectroscopy, and thermophysics.

Over the course of his career, S. S. Penner collaborated with such scientists as Farrington Daniels and Theodore Von Karman, received numerous awards and honors, founded and edited such journals as THE JOURNAL OF QUANTITATIVE SPECTROSCOPY AND RADIATIVE TRANSFER and ENERGY - THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, and wrote or edited hundreds of articles and more than twenty books.