Research Activities

Professor Karagozian has been a faculty member in the MAE Department at UCLA since 1982, having received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in that year. For interesting information on her academic antecendents and descendents (PhDs only), see the Mathematics Genealogy Project website.

Professor Karagozian's research interests lie in fluid mechanics and combustion, with applications to improved engine efficiency, reduced emissions, alternative fuels, and advanced high speed air breathing and rocket propulsion systems. For more information on UCLA's Energy and Propulsion Research Laboratory, with detailed descriptions of projects and recent publications, please go to:

  • UCLA MAE Energy and Propulsion Research Laboratory

    • Recent studies by Professor Karagozian and her collaborators have focused on:

  • Pulsed transverse jet flowfields with applications to high efficiency propulsion/combustion systems
  • Acoustically excited, burning fuel droplets with applications to alternative fuels and combustion instabilities
  • Numerical simulation of pulse detonation engine phenomena with applications to advanced propulsion and power systems

    • Prior studies have concerned:

  • Hydrogen leak detection with applications to aerospace safety and alternative fuels
  • Hypersonic flight testing with applications to development of advanced high speed propulsion systems
  • Lobed fuel injector flowfields with applications to emissions reduction from aircraft engines
  • Acoustically driven dump combustors with application to hazardous waste incineration
  • High speed non-forced jets in crossflow with application to aerospace propulsion systems

    • Professor Karagozian's abbreviated CV, with a list of representative publications, may be found at:

  • Ann Karagozian's CV

    • Teaching Activities

    Professor Karagozian regularly teaches a number of courses in the MAE Department at UCLA, all of which have their own homepages on the WWW:

  • MAE 103, Elementary Fluid Mechanics
  • MAE 150A, Intermediate Fluid Mechanics
  • MAE 150P, Aircraft Propulsion Systems
  • MAE 150R, Rocket Propulsion Systems
  • MAE 157, Basic Mechanical Engineering Laboratory
  • MAE 250B, Viscous and Turbulent Flows
  • MAE 250C, Compressible Flows
  • MAE 252C, Fluid Mechanics of Combustion Systems

    • Professor Karagozian is a recipient of the TRW-UCLA Award for Excellence in Teaching and the UCLA Henry Samueli Teaching Award from the MAE Department.

    Honors and Professional Activities

    Professor Karagozian is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She twice received the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service from the U.S Air Force (2001, 2010), and is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Phi Beta Kappa, the Combustion Institute, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

    Professor Karagozian is the immediate Past Chair of the American Physical Society/Division of Fluid Dynamics. She has served as APS DFD Chair (2010-11), Chair-Elect (2009-10), and Vice Chair (2008-9), as well as chair of several DFD committees.

    Professor Karagozian is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Defense Analyses. She was a member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) from 1997 - 2001 and from 2002 - 2010, and was the SAB Vice Chair from 2005 - 2009. In 2010 she chaired an AF SAB study on the Future of Launch Vehicle systems for the Air Force; a publicly released abstract of the study's findings and recommendations may be obtained from the SAB report website. Prof. Karagozian previously chaired SAB studies on Air Vehicle Fuel Efficiency (2006) and on Persistence at Near Space Altitudes (2005). The publicly-released Fuel Efficiency study report may be obtained from the SAB report website; an article on the Air Force's synthetic fuel testing, which was a major recommendation of the study, may be found at the Air Force Link website. A Defense Daily article describes the Near Space study. Prof. Karagozian has also chaired panels for the SAB dealing with sensor technologies for Hard and Deeply Buried Targets (HDBTs) and with reviews of the Air Force Research Lab. She also chaired the External Advisory Board of Sandia National Labs' Grand Challenge Laboratory Director's R&D Project on Near-Real Time Sensing for HDBT Defeat. She is an alumna of the Defense Science Study Group, sponsored by DARPAand the Institute for Defense Analyses.

    Professor Karagozian has been an Associate Editor of the AIAA Journal (2002-5) and of the AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power (1996-98). In 2001 she was co-organizer of an international meeting on the Manipulation and Control of Transverse Jets in Udine, Italy, sponsored by CISM (Centre International des Sciences Mecaniques), from which a Springer-Wein text is available. She is currently on the Executive Committee for the Western States Section of the Combustion Institute and for the American Physical Society/Division of Fluid Dynamics. She has also served as a member of the NASA Aero-Space Technology Advisory Committee (1995-2001) and the NASA Federal Lab Review Task Force (1994-5). She has served on technical panels for the National Academy of Science's Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, the Naval Studies Board, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation.

     Click here for information on Manipulation and Control of Jets in Crossflow (A. R. Karagozian, L. Cortelezzi, and A. Soldati, editors), a Springer-Wein text (2003). The text is also available from Amazon.com.