Profile of Theodore von Kármán (1881-1963)

Hungarian-born Theodore von Kármán received a Ph.D. in engineering at Germany's University of Göttingen. He came to Caltech in the 1920s to advise the designers of a wind tunnel, and stayed to eventually become director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory of Caltech (GALCIT). In 1936, he provided guidance to a group of Caltech graduate students and others who developed rocket motors and tested them in a dry river bed near Pasadena. This group, led by von Kármán, eventually received an Army contract to develop rockets for military use and the organization became known as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Von Kármán was Director until December 1944, when he went to Washington, DC to organize the Air Force's Scientific Advisory Board.