A New Sheriff in Town
It was summer 2006 and as with most of U of T, there was a kind of hush in the halls of UTIAS. And with UTIAS nestled behind Environment Canada at the edge of a large conservation area, the hush was profound. There was an old school vibe in the long office-lined hallways. Some of the high-ceilinged labs had students working within while other once au courant labs were being used for storage, waiting patiently to be refurbished.
It seemed like business as usual, but things were about to change because a new Director had been appointed – Professor David Zingg. What made this appointment significant is that David Zingg was the very first Director of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies who had not been originally hired by UTIAS founder Gordon N. Patterson (Director 1949 – 1974). In other words, David Zingg’s directorship was a changing of the guard.
NASA, it’s UTIAS calling…
In 1988, UTIAS launched a search for a professor working in an important new area called computational fluid dynamics (CFD). David Zingg had just completed his PhD in aerodynamics and numerical aerodynamics, which could be called the predecessors of CFD, so when then Director Rod Tennyson asked Zingg to apply, he did. However, Zingg believed that there was another candidate with a stronger knowledge of CFD, so he didn’t expect to be hired. In fact, he recently stated that if he had been director at the time, he would have hired the other person.
But Tennyson saw things in Zingg that he thought would make him a very good hire indeed: “he was a first-class graduate, very personable, well-liked by staff and students and quite articulate about his research plans. He also gave the impression that he knew where he wanted his research to go and was not concerned about his ability to achieve his goals.” So, Zingg was hired.