Manuel D. Salas is a distinguished research associate at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, USA. During his tenure at NASA, Mr. Salas was head of the theoretical aerodynamics branch, chief scientist for fluid dynamics, director of high performance computing, and principal investigator for the hypersonic aerodynamic program. He was also director of the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering (ICASE) from 1996 to 2002.