General Conference Chairs
Hamidreza Najafi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Florida Institute of Technology
Dr. Hamidreza Najafi is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Director of the Innovations in Sustainable Energy and Thermal Systems (ISETS) lab at the Florida Institute of Technology. Dr. Najafi research and teaching have been focused on designing and optimization of thermal/energy systems, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and computational heat transfer. He has served as PI/CO-PI on multiple projects funded by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), and several private industries. Dr. Najafi is the author/co-author of more than 50 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications, the co-author of one book (Wiley, 2023) and one book chapter (Springer, 2021). He is serving as the Chair of the ASME Renewable Energy and Energy Conversion (REEC) Technical Committee, Guest Editor of the ASME Journal of Energy Resources Technology, and a member of the ASME Computational Heat Transfer Committee (K20). Dr. Najafi also serves as the Florida Tech ASHRAE Students Branch Advisor, and Vice Chair of the ASHRAE Extraterrestrial and Deep Space Environmental Control Systems Task Group (ASHRAE TG 9. SPACE).
Julia Nicodemus, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Engineering Studies
Lafayette College
Julia Nicodemus is an Associate Professor of Engineering Studies at Lafayette College. She holds degrees from Grinnell College (BA in Physics), Brooklyn College (M.S. in Math Education), and the University of Minnesota (M.S. and PhD in Mechanical Engineering and M.S. in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy). Her scholarly interests include techno-economic and policy analyses of sustainable fuels and the use of baffles, manifolds and other passive means to control flow and temperature fields and enhance heat transfer to immersed heat exchangers in solar thermal storage tanks. Working in an undergraduate institution, she invites undergraduates into her research program and involves them deeply in her work. She teaches interdisciplinary classes in engineering and public policy, energy technologies, and sustainability to engineering and non-engineering undergraduate students. At Lafayette, she was awarded the John T. McCartney Excellence in Diversity Education Award in 2015 and the B. Vincent Viscomi Engineering Prize for Excellence in Mentoring and Teaching in 2021.
Technical Program Chairs
Ben Xu, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
University of Houston
Dr. Ben Xu is currently Assistant Professor, Presidential Frontier Faculty Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Houston (UH). His research interests focus on multiphase flow and heat transfer in advanced energy systems, high temperature solar thermal storage, additive manufacturing of Nickel-based super alloys, and laser-assisted 3D bioprinting. Prior to joining UH, Dr. Xu worked as Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Mississippi State University (MSU) and University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Drexel University. Dr. Xu has been PI, Co-PI and senior personnel at UH, MSU and UTRGV on multiple funded projects from US Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, and National Science Foundation. He has more than 50 scholarly publications in the field of renewable energy systems and advanced manufacturing. Currently, he is serving as the guest editor of Journal of Thermal Science and ASME Journal of Energy Resources Technology.
Luke J. Venstrom, Ph.D.
Paul H. Brandt Professor of Engineering
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Valparaiso University
Dr. Luke Venstrom is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Paul H. Brandt Professor of Engineering at Valparaiso University where he co-directs the James S. Markiwiecz Solar Energy Research Facility, home to the only solar furnace at a primarily undergraduate engineering college. He is a graduate of Valparaiso University (B.S.) and the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities (M.S., Ph.D.). His research broadly encompasses the thermal fluid sciences, with a focus on renewable energy systems and, in particular, high-temperature solar thermal and electrothermal chemistry. He was the 2019-2020 Valparaiso University Research Professor and the 2021 recipient of the Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Work for his integration of undergraduate students into cutting-edge, high-temperature concentrated solar energy research.
Technical Program Co-Chairs
Rohini Bala Chandran
Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering
University of Michigan
Rohini Bala Chandran is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan since January 2018. Previously, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and obtained an M.S. (2010) and Ph.D. (2015) from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, in Mechanical Engineering. At Michigan, Prof. Bala Chandran leads the Transport and Reaction Engineering for Sustainable Energy Lab (TREE Lab) to pursue multidisciplinary research in the areas of thermal and fluid sciences, multiscale computational modeling, electrochemical engineering, and semiconductor physics. Dr. Bala Chandran is a recipient of the NSF-CAREER award (2022), Doctoral New Investigator awardee from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (2021), and one of 100 selected attendees at the US Frontiers of Engineering meeting organized by the National Academy of Engineering (2020). Research in her group is additionally also funded by the US Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), and the US Department of Energy Fuel Cell Technologies Office (DOE-FCTO).
Pei-Dong, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
George Mason University
Pei Dong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at George Mason University. She obtained her B.S. in Microelectronics from Nankai University and her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University. She then did her postdoctoral research in the Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering at Rice University before joining George Mason University. She was the recipient of the Franz and Frances Brotzen Fellowship Award. Her current research interests include advanced materials design, and their applications in energy, water, and biomedical areas.