The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart.

–Einstein
 

The meek shall inherit the Earth -- the rest of us will go to the stars.

–from Notebooks of Lazarus Long, 1978

Dr. Joshua W. Batterson received his Bachelor's of Science in mechanical engineering from Tri-State University in 2005 (renamed Trine University in 2008). During the summer of 2004, he was selected to join the University of Michigan at Dearborn for a NSF REU program. While there, he performed numerical optimization studies of P.E.M. fuel cells for automotive applications.

He began working on his Master's of Science in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Tennessee Space Institute in the fall of 2005 with Dr. Joseph Majdalani. During that time, he constructed analytic models of the boundary layers in ORBITEC's Bidirectional Vortex Liquid Rocket Engine through asymptotic techniques. This work led to the completion of a Master's degree in 2007, several conference and journal papers, and an invited presentation on vortex flows.     

Josh received his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering in 2011 on the topic of Biglobal hydrodynamic instability. In parallel, he worked on vortico-acoustic modeling with generalized scaling techniques. These methods in nonlinear scaling and multiple scales theory have shown progress toward generalized methods solving fluid dynamics problems occurring over many scales simultaneously.  He also assisted in the instruction of asymptotic mathematics and perturbation theory as a guest lecturer and helped create an advanced course in perturbation theory focusing on applied methods in research.

While at UTSI, Josh was active in the student government and outreach.  His continued service and commitment to research awarded him the William Carter Fellowship in 2005 and the Lloyd W. Crawford Fellowship in 2008 along with being awarded the Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant award in 2007 and Outstanding Student award in 2008.  He was also presented with an AIAA Service Citation in 2009 for his contributions in organizing and hosting the Region II student conference.

Dr. Batterson is currently employed with Gloyer-Taylor Laboratories in Tullahoma, TN as a stability engineer.  His primary function continues to explore combustion instability mechanism in complex combustion devices through numeric and analytic analysis.  He also serves as an adjunct professor at The University of Tennessee Space Institute.

To date, Josh has authored 15 journal and conference papers.