Mansfield Fellow Reconnects with Japanese Scientists

January 26, 2017

Mansfield Fellow Reconnects with Japanese Scientists

Last week MFP No. 21 Fellow Michael Fletcher (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA) began a new placement at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and reconnected with two Japanese scientists he previously worked with at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.

One of Mr. Fletcher’s first meetings at JAXA was with the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) group (pictured above) and Yuichi Matsuo, the director of JAXA’s Numerical Simulation Research Unit.  Mr. Fletcher knew Dr. Matsuo when he was a researcher studying at Ames in 1992.  He and Dr. Matsuo later met with Shigeru Obayashi, who worked with Mr. Fletcher on CFD research projects at Ames in the early 1990s.  Dr. Obayashi (pictured with Mr. Fletcher and Dr. Matsuo below) is a member of an independent review panel that provides critical review and recommendations to Dr. Matsuo on JAXA’s computational sciences research work.  Mr. Fletcher’s current placement is in JAXA’s Aeronautical Technology Directorate; in February he will move to JAXA’s New Enterprise Promotion Department.