Janet Scheel

Janet Scheel is the Ezra Frederick Scattergood Professor of Physics at Occidental College, where she has served as Department Chair since her 2008 appointment. Her research focuses on pattern formation and turbulence in Rayleigh-Bénard convection, particularly in low Prandtl number fluids.

Education

• B.S., University of Illinois, Urbana
• M.A., M.S., Cornell University
• Ph.D., California Institute of Technology

Dr. Scheel’s work bridges fluid dynamics, nonlinear systems, and computational physics, with applications in chaos theory and statistical mechanics. She has held academic appointments at California Lutheran University, Caltech, and Cornell University, and conducted research at Argonne National Laboratory.

Publication Trends: Her recent studies emphasize turbulent superstructures, boundary layer dynamics, and numerical modeling of convection systems. Keywords include fluid dynamics, computational physics, and thermodynamics, with subfields like turbulent convection, plume interactions, and pattern stability.

Awards:

• Mercator Fellowship, DFG Priority Programme SPP 1881
• Ezra Scattergood Professorship

Advising: She has mentored undergraduate researchers on Lyapunov exponents, boundary layer analysis, and pattern formation in convection systems. Her textbook Analytical Mechanics remains a key advanced physics resource.