Professor Dave Pruett holds an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech and MS and PhD degrees in applied mathematics from the Universities of Virginia (1980) and Arizona (1986), respectively. Before joining the faculty of JMU in January 1996, he taught at Virginia Commonwealth University and The College of William and Mary. Additionally, he has nearly a decade of aerospace-related experience at NASA Langley Research Center, where he conducted supercomputer simulations to study the transition of high-speed fluid flows from laminar (ordered) to turbulent (chaotic) states. This type of research, known as direct numerical simulation (DNS), combines fluid mechanics, numerical methods, hydrodynamic stability, and supercomputing. In 1996, his computational work received national recognition through the Robert T. Knapp Award of ASME International. In 1998, he was an ERCOFTAC-sponsored visiting scientist at the Institute of Fluid Dynamics of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, and in summer 2003, he spent two weeks as a visiting scientist at the Institute for Aerodynamics and Gasdynamics at the University of Stuttgart. During his 12 years at JMU, he has helped to establish an interdisciplinary, NSF-sponsored undergraduate program in computational science, and he has developed and taught two innovative Honors courses: From Black Elk to Black Holes--Shaping a Myth for a New Millennium (HON200D, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004), which received a "Science-Religion" course award in 2001 from the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (affiliated with the Templeton Foundation), and "Great Questions: Questions That Have Changed the World" (HON200E, 2005). In addition, Dr. Pruett was a course leader (LS310) for JMU's 2005 London Institute and a participant in the 2007 "Boot Camp for Profs," held in Leadville, CO. Dr. Pruett is the 2004 recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award of the College of Science and Mathematics, the 2008-2009 recipient of the College's Madison Scholar Award, the first (2008) recipient of the Provost's Award for Excellence in Honors Teaching, and the University's first recipient (2008) of the Mengebier Endowed Professorship, a generous gift of the Class of 1958 to JMU in tribute to the late Prof. William Mengebier, beloved former head of the Biology Department.

Among his interests outside the classroom are being a dad to his teen-age daughter Ellie, reading, hiking, cycling, guitar, and traveling.

Sandia Crest Trail, 10,000 ft., Albuquerque, NM, Dec. 20, 2003, courtesy Sheldon Tieszen.	2005 JMU London Institute Group Photo