Theodore von Karman

Theodore von Karman was a Hungarian-American mathematician and aerospace engineer whose theoretical work on aerodynamics, especially the mathematics of supersonic and hypersonic airflow, made him one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century flight science. In 1936 he co-founded the Aerojet Corporation to build jet-assisted takeoff rocket motors, and in 1944 he and colleagues including Frank Malina established the Jet Propulsion Laboratory out of a Caltech rocketry research group he had supervised since the mid-1930s, serving as its first director. He went on to help found several other lasting institutions in aerospace research, including the Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development, the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, the International Academy of Astronautics and the Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium. In 1962 he became the first recipient of the United States National Medal of Science, awarded by President John F. Kennedy, in recognition of a career that connected pure theoretical aerodynamics to the practical founding of American rocketry and space research institutions.