AE Establishes Sentman Scholarship

4/8/2013 Written by Susan Mumm

Aerospace Engineering at Illinois will honor the late Emeritus Prof. Lee H. Sentman III by establishing a scholarship fund.

Written by Written by Susan Mumm

Emeritus Prof. Lee H. Sentman III
Emeritus Prof. Lee H. Sentman III
Emeritus Prof. Lee H. Sentman III
 Aerospace Engineering at Illinois will honor the late Emeritus Prof. Lee H. Sentman III by establishing a scholarship fund that will carry his name forward to new generations of AE students.

Those wishing to make a donation should write a check payable to “University of Illinois Foundation,” with “Lee Sentman Memorial Fund” on the notes section, then send the check to: Brett Clifton, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois, 306 Talbot Lab, 104 S. Wright St., Urbana, IL 61801.  For more information on how to contribute to this scholarship, please contact the Department of Aerospace Engineering at (217) 333-2651.

AE faculty, staff and students were shocked and saddened upon learning of the March 20, 2010 death of Sentman in a midair airplane collision.

“Prof. Sentman was a tough, but effective educator and a world-renowned researcher in the high-energy laser area,” said AE Department Head J. Craig Dutton. “Over his 35-plus year career, he made many substantive contributions to the well-being of the Aerospace Engineering Department. He will be sorely missed.”

Sentman, 73, died when his RV-6 experimental aircraft collided with a Piper 32 in Levy County, Florida. Flying the Piper, Rainer Salm, 60,  and his wife, Alice Stuebling-Salm, also died. The Federal Aviation Administration will need several months to investigate before a report on the crash can be finalized.

Sentman spent nearly seven years building his aircraft, which he completed in 2008. He routinely flew the craft in Illinois and Florida, where he and his wife owned homes.

“It is hard to explain, but some people just have a passion for flight,” David Carroll, Sentman's former student and longtime colleague, told the Chicago Tribune. “He was one of those people who grew up when jets became real. He was a professor through the Apollo era when space got extremely exciting.”

Sentman began his career as an assistant professor at Illinois in 1965, after earning a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering at Illinois in 1958, and a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University in 1965. He moved up the ranks, being named a full professor in 1979, and then retired in 2002. He served as AE Associate Department Head for a dozen years starting in 1987.

Among Sentman’s research interests were chemical lasers, mode-medium interactions, commercialization of high-energy chemical lasers, molecular dynamics, supersonic mixing reacting flows, fluid mechanics, kinetic theory and statistical mechanics and passive satellite attitude control. He directed the Chemical Laser Laboratory, involved in developing the fundamental understanding of the fluid dynamic, chemical kinetic and radiative interactions that determine continuous wave chemical lasers’ performance.

Sentman had received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Plasmadynamics and Lasers Award in 2002, and was a Fellow of that society. He was honored with the W.L. Everitt Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award from the College of Engineering at Illinois in 1969, and was named to the Outstanding Educators of America. Illinois’ AIAA Student Chapter twice chose Sentman as the Outstanding Teacher of the Year.

Lee had a no-nonsense approach to being a professor,” said his colleague, AE Emeritus Prof. John E. Prussing. “He was a tough taskmaster in the classroom and in his thesis advising. He expected and got the best from his students.”

Commented AE Emeritus Prof. Harry H. Hilton, “I have known Lee since the middle 1950s, when he attended several undergraduate classes that I then taught. He was an ardent contributor to the well being of the Department. He expected a great deal from his students but in the end they all benefited from his demands and attention. He shall be missed by all.”

Before finishing his PhD, Sentman worked as an engineer for Douglas Aircraft Corp., in Santa Monica, Calif., in 1957 and 1958; was a Guggenheim Fellow at Princeton University from 1958 to 1959; and was a dynamics engineer senior at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company in Sunnyvale, Calif., from 1959 to 1965.

He continued summer work as a research specialist for Lockheed (1968 and 1969); an aerospace engineer and a National Research Council Senior Postdoctoral Resident Research Associate for the Edwards Air Force Base Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (1971 and 1972, respectively); and a principal scientist for Bell Aerospace Co. in Buffalo, N.Y., (1973-1977).

Surviving are Sentman’s wife, Janice; children, Jeanne (Clay) Griswold of Florida, Charles (Mia) Sentman of New Hampshire, Christopher (Sandra) Sentman of Roselle and Jessica (Norman) Elwood of Tomah, Wis.; brother, John (Patricia) Sentman of Phoenix; and 11 grandchildren, Allison, Sarah, Julie, Kaisa, Isaac, Amelia, Elise, Leslie Kathleen, Elizabeth, Brieanna and Stephanie.


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This story was published April 8, 2013.