Dr. G. F. "Jerry" Jones

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

    Dr. Jones received his B.M.E. in 1972 from Villanova University.  After working as a project engineer for Mobil Oil in Paulsboro, New Jersey for 2-1/2 years, he studied at University of Pennsylvania where received his M.S.M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in 1975 and 1981, respectively. While there, in addition to Masters and Ph.D. research, he designed and built the liquid-cooled solar heating system for the University's SolaRow house on Spruce Street in Philadelphia which, today, is still in use.
    He was a staff member with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico until 1987.  His research activities included experiments on double-diffusive convection in salt-gradient ponds, transient natural convection in thermosyphons, experiments and numerical analysis for turbulent natural convection in buildings, and thermal analyses of numerous multi-dimensional heat transfer problems using the commercial codes MITAS and ABAQUS.   He supervised the construction and designed the instrumentation for a 230 square meter salt-gradient pond; monitoring the thermal performance for almost two years.  He initiated the effort at LANL for analytical and numerical modeling of inter-zonal natural convection in buildings, and performed advanced modeling of heat transfer and hydrodynamics in geothermal reservoirs and modeling heat transfer in cold-plates for cooling of electronic components.  Today, Dr. Jones consults with LANL each summer on a wide array of technical topics.
    Dr. Jones joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Villanova University in Fall, 1987 where he is currently professor and department chairman.  He teaches Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics, and several laboratory courses to undergraduates.  His graduate courses include Heat Conduction, Convection, Computational Fluid Mechanics, and Advanced Fluid Mechanics.  His research interests include heat transfer in composite materials, high-performance heat exchangers for electronics cooling, and thermal management for power production systems such as fuel cells. His most recent work includes the design and testing of a carbon-fiber composite heat exchanger for high-performance electronics cooling.
    In addition to his courses, Dr. Jones is a past president and secretary of the Villanova Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, and was faculty advisor to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Student Section from 1996-2002. He is active in the Philadelphia Section of ASME and served the section as chairman in 2001-2002. He serves on the ASME K-20 Committee on Computational Heat Transfer.  At Villanova, he has chaired several prominent committees including the College of Engineering Research Committee, the College of Engineering Mathematics Competency Committee, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering Laboratory Committee.  Dr. Jones is a member of the ASME, Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi, and Pi Tau Sigma.  He is also a reviewer for the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, The International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Cryogenics, the ASME Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, Numerical Heat Transfer, and ASME and American Solar Energy Society Conferences.  He has taught several short courses including review courses for the FEE examination in Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, and Fluid Mechanics, and Heat Transfer for General Electric Advanced Course at G. E. in Moorestown, NJ.  He has served on 18 M.S. and Ph.D. thesis committees and has published more than 65 archival journal and conference proceedings publications.
    Dr. Jones is a married, father of two adults.  His hobbies include home construction projects, mechanical tinkering (including antique mechanical clock repair and a 1988 Porsche 911 Carerra), fine wine, and music.