2011

Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

• Adviser: Prof. Clinton P. T. Groth

• Thesis title:

  Extended Fluid-Dynamic Modelling for Numerical Solution of Micro-Scale Flows

• External Reviewer: Prof. David Levermore

  Department of Mathematics and Institute for Physical Science and Technology,
  University of Maryland

2005

Ma.Sc., Aerospace Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

• Adviser: Prof. Clinton P. T. Groth

• Thesis title:

  Numerical Modelling of Micron-Scale Flows Using the Gaussian Moment Closure

2003

B.Eng., Mechanical Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

• Graduated with Sexton Distinction

2003

B.A., Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

• Major in Music
• Graduated with Distinction

2001

Diploma in Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

2011

Post-Doctoral Fellowship
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

• Currently held in the Center for Computational Engineering Science at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), Aachen, Germany.

2007

Thomas Noakes Graduate Scholarship

2006

CFD Society of Canada Graduate Scholarship Award

2005

Canadian Graduate Scholarship (Ph.D. level)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

2005

Mary H. Beatty Fellowship (declined to accept NSERC award)

2005

Ontario Graduate Scholarship (declined to accept NSERC award)

2003

Canadian Graduate Scholarship (Master's level)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

2002, 2003

Dalhousie In-Course Scholarship

2003

Alan D. Nickerson Memorial Scholarship

2002

Undergraduate Student Research Award
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

2000, 2001, 2002

Lorne C. Hubber Prize in Music

2001

J & A Campbell Music Department Scholarship

2001

Founders' Undergraduate Scholarship in Engineering

2001

Faculty of Engineering Scholarship

2001

Effie Mae Ross Scholarship in Music

2001

Dr. Edward Rhodes Engineering Scholarship

2000

National Association of Corrosion Engineers Scholarship

1999

James G. MacGregor Memorial Prize

1999

Dalhousie Entrance Guaranteed Scholarship

McDonald, J., Groth, C.P.T., Extended Fluid-Dynamic Model for Micron-Scale Flows Based on Regularized Gaussian Moment Closure. Physics of Fluids (In preparation)

McDonald, J., Sachdev, J. S., Groth, C. P. T.. Application of Gaussian Moment Closure to Micro-Scale Flows with Moving and Embedded Boundaries. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Journal, (submitted)

McDonald, J., Torrilhon, M., Affordable Robust Moment Closures for CFD Based on the Maximum-Entropy Hierarchy. Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 251, pp. 500-523, 2013.

McDonald, J., Groth, C.P.T., Towards Realizable Hyperbolic Moment Closures for Viscous Heat-Conducting Gas Flows Based on a Maximum-Entropy Distribution. Journal of Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Vol. 25, pp. 573-603, 2013.

Groth, C.P.T., McDonald, J.. Towards Physically-Realizable and Hyperbolic Moment Closures for Kinetic Theory. Journal of Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Vol. 21, pp. 467-493, 2009.

Lai, Y., McDonald, J., Kujath, M., and Hubbard, T. Force, Deflection and Power Measurements of Toggled Microthermal Actuators. Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering. Vol 14, pp. 49-56, 2004.

McDonald, J., and Torrilhon, M. Robust Hyperbolic Moment Closures for CFD. 28^th International Symposium on Rarefied Gas Dynamics, Zaragoza, Spain, July 9-13^th, 2012.

McDonald, J., and Groth, C.P.T. Numerical Solution of Maximum-Entropy-Based Hyperbolic Moment Closures for the Prediction of Viscous Heat-Conducting Gaseous Flows. 6^th International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics, ICCFD6, St. Petersburg, Russia, July 12-16^th, 2010. Edited by A. Kuzmin, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, pp. 653-659, 2011.

McDonald, J., and Groth, C.P.T. Physically-Realizable Hyperbolic Moment Closures for Predicting Non-Equilibrium Gaseous Flows. 17^th Annual Conference of the CFD Society of Canada, May 3-5^th, 2009, Ottawa, Canada.

McDonald, J., and Groth, C.P.T. Extended Fluid-Dynamic Model for Micron-Scale Flow Based on Gaussian Moment Closure. 46^th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, AIAA Paper 2008-691, January 7-10^th, 2008, Reno, Nevada.

McDonald, J., Sachdev, J.S., and Groth, C.P.T. Use of the Gaussian Moment Closure for the Modelling of Continuum and Micron-Scale Flows with Moving Boundaries. 4^th International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics, ICCFD4, Ghent, Belgium, July 10-14^th, 2006. Edited by H. Deconinck, E. Dick, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, pp. 783-788, 2009.

McDonald, J., and Groth, C.P.T. Numerical Modeling of Micron-Scale Flows Using the Gaussian Moment Closure. 35^th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit, AIAA Paper 2005-5035, June 6-9^th, 2005, Toronto, Canada.

McDonald, J., and Groth, C.P.T. Realizable Hyperbolic Moment Closures for Gaseous Flows. Workshop on Computational Methods for Hyperbolic Problems, University of Waterloo, April 20-22^th, 2009.

Groth, C.P.T., McDonald, J.. Towards Physically-Realizable and Hyperbolic Moment Closures for Kinetic Theory. Workshop on Moment Methods in Kinetic Theory, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland, November 6-8^th, 2008.

A Unified Method for the Prediction of Continuum and Transition-Regime Gas Flows, keynote lecture, Workshop on Stochastic Modelling of Multiscale Systems, Eindhoven, Netherlands, December 2^nd-6^th, 2013.

Robust Hyperbolic Moment Closures for Continuum and Non-Equilibrium Gas-Flow Prediction Von Kármán Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI), Brussels, Belgium, January 24^th, 2013.

Extended Fluid-Dynamic Models for Micron-Scale Flows, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland, March 18^th, 2008.

J. G. McDonald, Extended Fluid-Dynamic Modelling for Numerical Solution of Micro-Scale Flows, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, 2011.

J. G. McDonald, Numerical Modelling of Micron-Scale Flows Using the Gaussian Moment Closure, Master's Thesis, University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, 2005.

I have served as a reviewer for articles submitted to the following journals:

• Journal of Computational Physics
• Journal of Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics
• Communications in Mathematical Sciences

2013-Present

Assistant Professor
University of Ottawa, Department of Mechanical Engineering

2010-2013

Post-Doctoral Fellow
Mathematics (Center for Computational Engineering Science)
Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), Aachen, Germany

• My host professor is Prof. Dr. Manuel Torrilhon.
• Development of hyperbolic moment equations for the prediction of viscous heat-conducting gas flows in and out of local equilibrium for application to practical engineering problems.

2003-2010

Master's and Ph. D. Studies
CFD and Propulsion Group, University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies.

• I studied under the advisement of Prof. Clinton Groth.
• I was the first person to carry out a thorough numerical investigation of the predictive capabilities for maximum-entropy moment closures for non-equilibrium gas flows.
• I developed and extended flow-solver software that efficiently runs on massive distributed-memory computers.
• I proposed several new closures for the prediction of continuum and non-equilibrium gases, including a regularized ten-moment closure and an affordable one-dimensional hyperbolic closure based on a fitting technique and maximum-entropy assumption.
• I was able to discover, develop, and implement creative physical models and numerical techniques in a very independent manner.

2002

Research Assistant
Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Lab,
Mechanical Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

• I assisted graduate students in their research by determining force and deflection characteristics of several MEMS actuator designs through experimental measurement.

I am experienced in developing and evaluating flow solvers for a variety of equations including the Euler equations, Navier-Stokes equations, the Boltzmann equations, and many moment closures. These solvers have varied from simple one-dimensional codes to large-scale codes designed to efficiently run on massive parallel distributed-memory computational facilities.

I have experience with numerical techniques including:

• Godunov-type finite-volume methods
• Finite-difference methods
• Finite-element methods such as discontinuous-Galerkin
• Explicit, point-implicit, and fully implicit time-marching methods
• Adaptive mesh refinement
• Mesh-adjustment schemes for embedded moving boundaries

I am also proficient with programming languages and computational techniques such as:

• C and C++
• Parallelization through OpenMP and MPI
• GPU acceleration and CUDA
• Linux and Unix
• Various other computational tools such as Git, Maple, LAPACK, GSL, and LaTeX

2011

Project Leader - RWTH Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

• The RWTH UROP program allows researchers in Aachen to submit projects that are open to applications from undergraduate engineering students in the United States and Canada. I submitted a project and accepted an applicant from Princeton University.
• I designed a project wherein a student would implement a flux function corresponding to a recently proposed moment closure in my existing flow software. I taught the student the basics of gaskinetic theory, moment closures, and upwind finite-volume-based flow solvers.
• This student was very successful in his project and we are now preparqing a paper for submission to the Journal of Computational Physics which is largely based on his work.

2011-2012

Teaching Assistant - Mathematics IV (second-year calculus)
Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), Aachen, Germany

• I prepared weekly assignments and led weekly tutorials.
• I aided in preparing, administering, and marking the final exam.

2004-2009

Teaching Assistant - Second-year fluid mechanics
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

• I prepared and led weekly tutorials and problem sessions.
• I administered and marked monthly tests.

1999-2001

Member of the Band of the Ceremonial Guard

• I played trombone for the daily Changing-of-the-Guard Ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada.
• I was a member of the Canadian-Forces Reserves during this time.

2000-2010

Low-Brass Musical Instructor

• I have volunteered as an instrumental music teacher for many low-brass sectionals and clinics at various junior-high and high schools in Halifax and Toronto.

2005-2007

Social Coordinator
Aerospace Student Association, University of Toronto, Canada

• I was responsible for organizing various student events and outings such as dinner-dance evenings, lunch-time holiday parties, and outings to local sporting events.

2005-2010

Member of Various Aerospace Departmental Committees
At various times while at the University of Toronto, I was a member of
the following committees:

• Aerospace Seminar Committee
• Student Experience Committee
• Student Appeals Committee
• Library Committee

My mother tongue is English

I am bilingual in French

• I obtained a bilingual high-school diploma from a french-immersion high school.

I am currently studying German

• I have completed German level A.1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
• I am currently studying for level A.2.