Winner of the ASME Henry R. Worthington Medal
Dr. Phillip M. Ligrani
Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering,
Eminent Scholar in Propulsion
University of Alabama in Huntsville

Presentation Title: Development of Innovative and Unique Pumping Concepts and Devices with Micro-, Millimeter-, and Macro-Scale Flow Passage Arrangements

Biography: Dr. Phil Ligrani is currently the Eminent Scholar in Propulsion, and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Prior to August 2014, Dr. Phil Ligrani was the Oliver L. Parks Endowed Chair, and Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Saint Louis University. Prior to that appointment, he was the Donald Schultz Professor of Turbomachinery in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. There, from 2006 to 2009, he was also Director of Oxford University's Rolls-Royce UTC (University Technology Centre) in Heat Transfer and Aerodynamics. From 1994 to 2006, he was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Director of the Convective Heat Transfer Laboratory, and Associate Department Chair in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah. Research interests include turbomachinery, convective heat transfer, fluid mechanics, transonic, supersonic, and hypersonic flows, as well as micro-fluidics, and measurement technologies. He has received numerous academic awards and recognitions from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, as well as from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is also currently a member of the European Union Academy of Sciences (EUAS).

 

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Winner of the ASME Freeman Scholar Award
Suman Chakraborty
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

Presentation Title: Fluid Dynamics and Cardiovascular Health - Perspectives from on-Chip Devices and Patient-Specific Simulations

Biography: Suman Chakraborty is a Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India and Sir J. C. Bose National Fellow as bestowed by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, and a recent winner of the National Award for Teachers presented by the Hon. President of India. He has been Institute Chair Professor, the Head of the School of Medical Science and Technology and the Dean of Research and Development. His current areas of research include microfluidics, nanofluidics, micro-nano scale transport, with particular focus on biomedical applications including medical diagnostic technology for affordable healthcare. He is the winner of the coveted Infosys Prize in the category of Engineering & Computer Science in 2022, and the recipient of the Santi Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize in the year 2013, which is the highest Scientific Award from the Government of India. He has been elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of ASME, Fellow of all the Indian National Academies of Science and Engineering, recipient of the G. D Birla Award for Scientific Research, National Academy of Sciences India – Reliance Industries Platinum Jubilee Award for Application Oriented Research, Rajib Goyal Prize for Young Scientists, Indo-US Research Fellowship, Scopus Young Scientist Award for high citation of his research in scientific/technical Journals, and Young Scientist/ Young Engineer Awards from various National Academies of Science and Engineering, and recipient of Outstanding Teacher Award from the Indian National Academy of Engineering. He has also been an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, and a visiting Professor at various leading Universities abroad. He has a large volume of impactful publications in top International Journals (525+) with high citations (15000+) as well as patents/ licensed technologies and a unique expertise in technology development for the under-served population and community health-care.

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Winner of the ASME Fluids Engineering Award
S. "Bala" Balachandar
Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Director of College of Engineering Institute for Computational Engineering
University of Florida

Presentation Title: Using Machine Learning as an Expert Instrument for Unprecedented Advances in Multiscale Modeling of Multiphase Flows

Biography: S. "Bala" Balachandar got his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1983 and his MS and PhD in Applied Mathematics and Engineering at Brown University in 1985 and 1989. From 1990 to 2005 he was at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. From 2005 to 2011 he served as the Chairman of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. Currently he is a distinguished professor at the University of Florida. He is the Newton C. Ebaugh Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and the Director of College of Engineering Institute for Computational Engineering. Bala received the Francois Naftali Frenkiel Award from American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) in 1996 and the Arnold O. Beckman Award and the University Scholar Award from University of Illinois. He is Fellow of ASME and the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics. He was the recipient of ASME Freeman Fellowship Award (2017), Gad Hetsroni Senior Researcher Award from ICMF (2019), Outstanding Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (2019), Outstanding Doctoral Mentoring Award from the University of Florida (2020), Thermal Fluids Engineering Award from the American Society of Thermal Fluids Engineers (2022), and University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship (2023). He is currently the co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Multiphase Flow and an associate editor of the Theoretical and Computational Fluid Dynamics.