Dr. Stefan Thynell was the first six time All-American in school history, and the first shooter to earn two All-America honors in the same season during his career from 1976-80.
A native of Goteborg, Sweden, Thynell established a new standard for collegiate competition for the smallbore full course competition in 1979 with an 1178 out of a possible 1200. He topped that mark with an 1181, the highest score in the history of smallbore match in January 1980.
Thynell broke that record with an 1187 at the NCAA Rifle Championships in April 1980, a mark that stood until 2002. He also held the NCAA mark for the top smallbore score in the standing position in team competition with a 389 until it was broken in 2000.
Thynell earned All-America honors in 1977 and 1978 before capturing All-America honors in air rifle and smallbore in both 1979 and 1980. He is the only shooter in school history to be named the team's most outstanding shooter all four years. At the end of his collegiate career, Thynell was called the nation's all-time top collegiate shooter by coach
Ed Etzel.
Thynell was a two-time member of the Swedish Olympic Team, competing in the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 1980 Moscow Olympics. He represented Sweden at the 1974 and 1987 World Shooting Championships.
He earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at WVU in 1980, where he was the recipient of the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. Thynell furthered his education with a master's degree in mechanical engineering from NC State in 1983 and a PhD in mechanical engineering from NC State in 1986.
Thynell joined the Mechanical Engineering Department at Penn State in 1986 and was promoted to full professor in 1997. He also served as a graduate program director from 2002-08. Concurrently, he has also worked for the National Science Foundation as the Program Director, Thermal Transport and Thermal Processing and the Coordinator for Information Technology Research, Engineering Directorate from 1999-2001. He has won numerous awards and honors, including a distinguished service award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
From 2001-2004 he served as the Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer. In 1999, Thynell was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and in 2005 he was elected Associate Fellow of the AIAA. In 2007, he became a Member of the Academy of Distinguished Alumni for mechanical engineering at WVU.
Thynell resides near State College, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Lena.
