Dr. Neitzel’s research is in the area of fluid mechanics. His doctoral work was of a theoretical and numerical nature, studying the hydrodynamic instability of the problem called spin-down. He continued to work on the hydrodynamic stability of unsteady flows for several years and still maintains an interest in this area. In the mid-1980s, he began to conduct research on flows related to materials processing applications such as crystal growth from bulk melts. Such flows are strongly influenced by the phenomenon known as thermocapillarity, which is the variation of a liquid’s surface tension with temperature. The instability of a type of convection driven by this is known to cause the appearance of dopant striations in silicon grown by the so-called “float-zone” crystal-growth process. Dr. Neitzel, his colleagues, and students have computed domains of stable and unstable flow in a model system and have also demonstrated, experimentally, how it may be possible to suppress the flow oscillations which lead to the above striations. Much of the work done by Dr. Neitzel since receiving his Ph.D. has been of an experimental nature; currently, experimental research makes up more than half of his current projects. He began at Tech in 1990 as a Professor. Prior, he was Assistant, Associate, and Professor at Arizona State University.