Mechanical engineering society honors institute director for contributions to heat-transfer field
Roop L. Mahajan, the director of the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at Virginia Tech, received the 75th Anniversary Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Heat Transfer Division at the 2013 Summer Heat Transfer Conference in Minneapolis.
The award recognizes Mahajan’s service to the heat transfer community and contributions to the field, according to Roy E. Hogan, chairman of the Heat Transfer Division of the ASME.
The Lewis A. Hester Chair in Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mahajan is an internationally known researcher with expertise ranging from nanotechnology to bio-micro-electro-mechanical systems. His research interests include heat transfer, biomedical engineering, nanotechnology, humanistic engineering, thermal sciences, artificial neural networks, and robust sustainability.
His latest honor adds to a list of ASME accolades, including the Heat Transfer Memorial Award, the Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award for outstanding achievements in mechanical engineering 20 years or more following graduation, and the Ralph Coats Roe Medal for lifelong contributions toward a better public understanding and appreciation of the engineer’s worth to contemporary society.
Mahajan is a Fellow of the ASME, which promotes the art, science, and practice of mechanical and multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences throughout the world.
Mahajan came to Virginia Tech in 2006 from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he served as a professor of mechanical engineering and as the founder director of a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Advanced Manufacturing and Packaging for Microwave, Optical, and Digital Electronics. He received the Boulder Faculty Assembly Award for excellence in research, scholarship, and creative work.
Mahajan, who received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, was employed by AT&T Bell Labs from 1979 until 1991 as a research leader and supervisor in thermal and computational engineering. He received the Bell Labs Fellow Award in 1989, an honor bestowed to only about 1 percent of the entire technical community of Bell Labs.
