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In searching for a theme of general interest to a wider audience, I thought that it might be interesting to review, with a broad brush, a number of topics that have fascinated me over the past many years. These would include: flame and bubble propagation; tornadoes, dust-devils and vortex breakdown; vortex rings and trailing vortices; insect flight; the dynamics of interfaces; stratified / rotating fluids; gravity currents; turbulent convection; solitary waves and the Great Red Spot among several others. I will attempt to outline the dominant processes involved in a description of a few of these topics and try to show some of the subtle connections between seemingly unrelated subjects.

Professor Tony Maxworthy was born in England where he attended primary and secondary schools before entering the Imperial College of Science and Technology. After graduating with a First Class Honours degree in Mechanical Engineering, he moved to the U.S, completing his MSc at Princeton University and his Ph.D. at Harvard University. He then joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Combustion Group and was later reassigned to the Fluid Physics Group led by Dr. Peter Wegener and eventually by Dr. Janos Laufer. Three years after Professor Laufer moved to the University of Southern California to found an Aerospace Engineering Department, Professor Maxworthy joined the faculty of USC. It has been his home institution ever since.

Professor Maxworthy was named the Smith International Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1988. He is a Fellow in the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1991. His current research focuses on geophysical and environmental fluid dynamics, low-speed aerodynamics, non-linear waves, bubble and interface dynamics, vortex dynamics, turbulent and convective flows, directional solidification and animal flight aerodynamics. He has published over 169 publications.