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Professor Decher did his undergraduate studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (B. Aero. Eng. 1961) and went on to complete graduate (MSAA, 1962 and PhD 1967) degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His graduate studies were preceded by and followed professional work at the AVCO-Everett Research Laboratory in the period 1962-1964. He spent further time in industry at The Boeing Company in the Propulsion Research Group between 1972 and 1974. He joined the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1967. His teaching and research focused on fluid mechanics, propulsion and energy conversion. He published numerous articles in the journals of the AIAA and elsewhere, often the result of collaborative work with students. Professor Decher received support from the National Science Foundation and The Boeing Company. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar at the University of Karlsruhe (81-82) and at the Technical University of Berlin (98-99). He was invited guest professor at MIT and at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (91-92). He has consulted extensively with industry regarding energy conversion and propulsion. His interest in the irreversible thermodynamics of heat engines and power systems led to the publication of two books entitled Energy Conversion, Oxford University Press, 1994, and Direct Energy Conversion, Oxford University Press, 1997.

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