A new assistant professor has been welcomed into the mechanical engineering department at Iowa State.

Mark Bryden recently joined the faculty after completing his doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He earned his degree in general engineering from Idaho State University in 1977 and worked for 14 years after that for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. There he focused on nuclear power plant design and operation and field engineering. He also spent about 10 years at Westinghouse in corporate management.

After that period, Bryden went back to school, where he completed his masters and doctoral degrees.

Although his schooling schedule sounds a bit backwards, Bryden said he planned that way.

Bryden and his wife decided when they graduated from Idaho State that they wanted to work and have children before going back to school.

“There are many different ways to do a career,” Bryden said.

His wife currently is working on her doctoral degree in music theory.

Bryden will be both teaching and researching at ISU, which is the primary reason he chose to come to Ames.

“It seemed like it was a good opportunity to do world-quality research and world-class teaching,” he said. “At many schools it seems you don’t get a chance to do both. That was the most attractive part [about ISU].”

Bryden will teach fluid mechanics, heat transfer and thermo-dynamics at the undergraduate level, and combustion, computational fluid dynamics and thermo-dynamics at the graduate level.

His research focuses on three main topics.

One is flame spread and how to suppress it in the house using water sprays. Bryden also is interested in virtual reality to model combustion systems, and he wants to help companies with modeling and design on small biomass stoves.

On a more personal level, Bryden said he enjoys backpacking, skiing and fly fishing.

Bryden interviewed with a couple other universities and applied at 10 more before settling with ISU.

“I considered both the research universities like ISU and teaching only universities,” he said. “[ISU has] a great faculty and it’s a school with a great reputation.”

Bryden said he felt ISU had the best opportunities for his needs along with an existing biomass combustion program which tipped him over the edge in his decision making process.

He will begin his teaching and research in the fall and currently is spending as much time as possible with his family in Wisconsin.