Shawn Brueshaber

Contact

srbruesh@mtu.edu
906-487-2901

Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Western Michigan University
Masters of Mechanical Engineering, Western Michigan University
BS, Aerospace Engineering, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Biography

Shawn Brueshaber (he/him/his) is a planetary atmospheric scientist and member of the Juno Science Team researching the atmospheric dynamics of the Solar System’s giant planets using global circulation modeling, cloud tracking methods, and analysis of remote sensing data. He uses data acquired from the Hubble Space Telescope, from NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility, and from four instruments onboard the Juno spacecraft, which is currently orbiting Jupiter.

He earned his Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering at Western Michigan University in 2020, his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Western Michigan University in 2008, and his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1994. Prior to joining the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher in 2020, he spent 21 years designing mechanical products and systems; conducting stress, fluid dynamics/heat transfer, fatigue and fracture analyses in the aerospace, automotive, paper, and pulp, and appliance industries.

Shawn has also taught graduate and undergraduate engineering courses at Western Michigan University. He was awarded Western Michigan University’s All University Graduate Teaching Award in 2017. As a graduate student, Shawn was the recipient of a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (2016–2019) and Western Michigan University’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2019–2020).

In 2020, while still a graduate student, Shawn’s NASA Solar System Workings proposal was selected for funding, which seeks to study convection and vortex formation on Uranus and Neptune. He is currently a Co-Investigator on two Hubble Space Telescope projects, and another on NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility studying Jupiter’s weather and climate. To date, Shawn has published 14 papers in the field of planetary science either as lead author or as a co-author.

Links of Interest

Courses Taught

Introduction to Mechanical Engineering
Thermodynamics I.
Material Science
Theoretical and Computational Fluid Dynamics

Research Interests

Giant planet (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) atmospheric dynamics
Convection and storm dynamics in planetary atmospheres
Remote sensing of planets (telescopic and spacecraft imaging)
Lake effect snow storms
Turbulence
Spacecraft mission development and design
Computational fluid dynamics
Remote sensing for amphibian population studies.

Recent Publications

Csaba Palotai, Shawn Brueshaber, Ramanakumar Sankar, Kunio Sayanagi. Moist Convection in the Giant Planet Atmospheres. Remote Sensing (2023) 15, 219.
Brueshaber, S.R., Sayanagi, K.M., Antuñano, A., Baines, K., Fletcher, L.N., Sánchez-Lavega, A., Sromovsky, L., West, R.A. Saturn’s Polar Atmosphere. Chapter in The New View from Cassini’s Grand Finale. Cambridge University Press (accepted).
Shawn Brueshaber, Zhimeng Zhang, Fabiano Oyafuso, Glenn Orton, Shannon Brown, Steve Levin, Andrew Ingersoll, Davide Grassi, Alessandro Mura, Gerald Eichstadt, Candice Hansen, Leigh N. Fletcher, Shinji Mizumoto, Scott Bolton. Multi-Instrument Sounding of a Jovian Thunderstorm from Juno and Earth. (in prep)
Brueshaber, S.R., and Sayanagi, K.M. Effects of Forcing Scale and Intensity on the Emergence and Maintenance of Polar Vortices on Saturn and the Ice Giants. Icarus (2021) 361, 114386
Brueshaber, S.R, Sayanagi, K.M., and Dowling, T.E. Dynamical Regimes of Giant Planet Polar Vortices. Icarus (2019) 323, 46-61.
Liu, T., Sayanagi, K.M., Brueshaber, S.R., Ingersoll, A.P., Dyudina, U.A., Ewald, S.P. Saturn’s North Polar Structure Extracted from Cloud Images by the Optical Flow Method. Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets, 15 October 2019.
Samuel M. Howell, Luoth Chou, Michelle Thompson, Michael C. Bouchard, Sarah Cusson, Matthew L. Marcus, Harrison Brodsky Smith, Srinivasa Bhattaru, John J Blalock, Shawn Brueshaber, Siegfried Eggl, Erica Jawin, Kelly Miller, Maxime Rizzo, Kathryn Steakley, Nancy H Thomas, Kimberly Trent, Melissa Ugelow, Charles John Budney and Karl L Mitchell. Camilla: A centaur reconnaissance and impact mission concept. Planetary and Space Science (2018) 164, 184-193 •
Emma Dahl, Shawn Brueshaber, Richard Cosentino, Csaba Palotai, Naomi Rowe-Gurney, Ramanakumar Sankar, Kunio Sayanagi and 20 additional co-authors. Ice Giant Atmospheric Science, A White Paper for NASA’s Planetary Science Decadal Survey. BAAS Vol 53, Issue 4 (2021)

Recent Funding

NASA Solar System Workings. Modeling of Dark Anticyclonic Vortex Formation on the Ice Giants. $390,000 (PI)

Select Presentations

American Geophysical Union 2022. Chicago, USA. Jupiter’s Thunderstorms and Environs in the North Equatorial Belt: Results from JIRAM, JunoCam, MWR and Earth-Based Observations during Perijove 38.
European Planetary Science Conference 2022. Granada, Spain. Dissecting Jupiter’s Thunderstorms: Results from JIRAM, JunoCam, MWR and Earth-Based Observation
European Geophysical Union 2022. Vienna, Austria. Multi-Instrument Observations of a Jovian Thunderstorm from Juno and Ground-Based Telescopes
University of Leicester 2021. Shallow-water modeling of giant planet polar vortices.
Hampton University, 2020. Shallow-water modeling of giant planet polar vortices.
I Know Nothing about Uranus (or Neptune). Why we need to Explore the Ice Giants. Custer Series Lecture, Western Michigan University. Kalamazoo, MI 2019
Astronomy on Tap. Weather and Climate on the Gas Giant Planets. Lansing, MI. 2017
Weather and Climate in the Solar System. Kalamazoo Nature Center, Summer Science Seminar Series 2017. Kalamazoo, MI

Teaching Experience

Undergraduate
- Western Michigan University, Part-Time Faculty, 2016-2017 (Thermodynamics, Intro. To Mechanical Engineering, Material Science)
- Greenbrier Community College, Adjunct Faculty, 1995 (Developmental Algebra)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 2020-2022. Postdoctoral Researcher mentoring undergraduate interns for Jupiter-related science.
Graduate: Western Michigan University, Adjunct Faculty, 2012 (Theoretical and Computational Fluid Dynamics)

Teaching Statement

As an educator, I am focused on the goal of building engineers for industry and research to create new products, systems, methods, and scientific investigations.