International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 58 (2013) 3–5

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

In Celebration

Professor Bud Peterson on his 60th birthday

It is a great pleasure to celebrate the achievements of Dr. G.P.
‘Bud’ Peterson, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology,
on his 60th birthday. President Peterson is a distinguished scholar
in the heat transfer community and more broadly, he is a leader inshaping higher education in the United States. Most professionals
in the academic community have to make a decision at some pointin their career between the diverging paths of being a teacher andresearcher, or working as an administrator. President Peterson has
found a home in each of these disparate areas and has ﬂourished in
both.
From football player to chancellor. President Peterson was born in
Palo Alto, California on September 1, 1952, and moved with hisfamily to Prairie Village, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. At Shawnee Mission East High School he excelled academically and athletically, lettering in football, basketball, and track. He subsequently
went to Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS, where he played
football, ﬁrst as a walk-on and later as a scholarship athlete. As athree year letterman, he started 26 games at a tight end/wide receiver from 1970 to 1974, catching 30 passes for 359 yards. In
1973, he helped the Wildcats beat the University of Colorado inan exciting ﬁnish at Folsom Field on the Boulder campus. Little
did he know that he would someday be the chancellor there
33 years later.
President Peterson met his sweetheart, soul mate, and wife of
38 years, Val, in 1971, and they married in May 1974, just prior
to their senior year. In 1975, he graduated from Kansas State with
a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and in 1977 received a B.S. in
Mathematics. While attending as a part time student and working
full time, he earned an M.S. in Engineering in 1980. He and Val then

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2012.10.074

moved to Texas A&M University, where he worked as an AssistantProfessor in the Engineering Technology Department, while at thesame time pursuing his doctorate in Mechanical Engineering,which he completed in 1985.
Combining research with administrative tasks in academia. Professor Peterson’s career in academia began in 1979 at Kansas Technical Institute in Salina, Kansas where he worked as an associate
professor and head of the General Engineering Technology Department. His research contributions to the ﬁelds of two-phase heattransfer and heat pipe development, began early in his career during the summers of 1981 and 1982 while he was a visiting researchscientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. His research included determining the priming capability of high-capacity heat pipes in reduced gravity environments. Following thecompletion of his Ph.D. in 1985, he was appointed as an assistantprofessor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Professor Peterson was subsequently promoted and tenured as
an associate professor in 1988 and full professor in 1990. Other
positions during this time included serving as the head of the
Thermal and Fluid Sciences Division in 1989, Halliburton Professor
of Engineering from 1990 to 1991, Tenneco Professor of MechanicalEngineering from 1991 to 2000, and head of the MechanicalEngineering Department from 1993 to 1996.
In 1996, Professor Peterson was appointed Texas A&M’s executive Associate Dean of Engineering and also served as the Associate
Vice Chancellor for the Texas A&M University System in 1996.
From July 2000 until June 2006, Professor Peterson served as the
provost at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
In 2006, he was appointed as chancellor at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he served until his appointment as the
11th president of the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2009.
A pioneer in micro heat pipe development. Professor Peterson has
made outstanding and lasting contributions to the areas of heat
pipes, two-phase change heat transfer, microchannel ﬂow and heattransfer, and the behavior of complex ﬂuids. One exceptional contribution was his pioneering research on micro heat pipes. Professor Peterson developed the ﬁrst silicon micro heat pipes embedded
in silicon wafers. These devices had a hydraulic diameter of lessthan 50 lm and could achieve an effective thermal conductivity
many times greater than that of the silicon wafer, depending upon
the packing density.
As early as the 1990s, Professor Peterson realized that the integration of cooling technologies directly to the silicon wafer was
one of the most effective ways to efﬁciently reject the heat generated from microelectronic components. Professor Peterson demonstrated that vapor-deposited micro heat pipe arrays fabricated as
an integral part of semiconductor devices could act as highly efﬁcient heat spreaders, by reducing the thermal path between theheat sources and heat sinks. Fabrication of these micro heat pipes

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In Celebration / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 58 (2013) 3–5

in silicon wafers was accomplished using a chemical etching process, vapor deposition process to match the CTE (Coefﬁcient ofThermal Expansion), UV bonding, and accurate-control of theworking ﬂuid charge. These micro heat pipe arrays, immediately
raised the bar in the ﬁeld of heat pipe research to a new leveland more importantly, demonstrated the importance of interdisciplinary research and microscale heat transfer.
Together with a number of other colleagues, Professor Petersonorganized several of the ﬁrst conferences on Microscale Heat
Transfer. Thanks to his 12-hours-per-day work schedule, he wasable to not only conduct extensive scientiﬁc research, but also continue to work with his students and complete his ﬁrst book entitled ‘‘An Introduction to Heat Pipes: Modeling, Testing andApplications’’. This innovative textbook introduced a wide rangeof micro/miniature heat pipe applications to microelectronic systems and components, thereby opening up a whole new ﬁeld within the heat transfer industry.
As early as 1997, Intel’s Architecture Platform Research Lab
asked Professor Peterson if it was possible to demonstrate a lowcost heat pipe cooling technology for use in future Intel processors.
At that time, no one was using the heat pipe for the computer cooling. Although it was well known that state-of-the-art heat pipes
could provide extra-high effective thermal conductivity, the fabrication cost was too high. Most heat pipe applications at that time
were related to aerospace and military needs.
The multi-year project entitled ‘‘Low Cost Thermal Management for Desktop Computers’’ funded by Intel enabled ProfessorPeterson and his research team to demonstrate that a low-costheat pipe could be developed and could meet the thermal management requirements of the new Intel chips.
Eventually the low-cost grooved/sintered heat pipes were employed in a wide variety of computes that employed Intel microprocessors. Today, almost every laptop or desktop computer on
the market has a heat pipe cooling module inside.
Publications and awards. In the area of microchannel heat transfer and ﬂuid ﬂow, Professor Peterson’s team developed experimental and theoretical methods to quantify vapor and liquid transport.
His pioneering study on the sharp corner regions of triangular andrectangular channels and friction and heat transfer work in 1994–
1996 laid a sound foundation for the study of microchannel ﬂow
and heat transfer, and was utilized in a wide range of phase change
heat transfer and microchannel applications within the electronics,
medical, space, and aircraft industries.
Professor Peterson’s recent work in heat and mass transfer incomplex ﬂuids (nanoﬂuids) has bridged the gap between chemical
physics and heat transfer on tailoring the thermophysical transportof materials. Professor Peterson has published his research resultsin more than 260 journal articles and 16 books, monographs andinvited book chapters. In addition, he has lectured and organizedshort courses for universities, professional organizations, andindustries. He holds nine patents with two others pending.
Professor Peterson has received numerous honors and awards
for both teaching and research, including the ASEE/DOW Chemical
Corporation-Outstanding Young Faculty Award in 1988 and theTexas A&M University Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award
for Teaching in 1993. His research awards include the 1990 Best
Paper in AIAA Thermophysics and the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award in 2001. Service awards include the National Science
Foundation (NSF) Management Excellence Award in 1995 andthe Frank J. Malina Medal awarded by the International Astronautical Federation in 2005.
Professor Peterson’s commitment to mentoring his students
and young faculty, along with his genuine curiosity and tireless energy has inspired and guided more than 30 students and many
more visiting scientists in their graduate studies and careers. He
continually encouraged his students to go beyond their comfort

zones. He is an outstanding mentor and scholar, who has inspired
his students and those who have worked for him to strive for excellence and high standards in all endeavors.
What distinguishes Bud from many other leading researchers
and administrators are his infectious humility and willingness tohelp despite great demands on his time. One can always dependon him to deliver whatever is needed and to do the best thatmight be expected. He loves to sit down and discuss research,
as well as other issues of the day, with his friends and students,
putting them fully at ease. He has always shown a genuine concern and afﬁnity for his fellow researchers and educators. Thisfeeling has been and will always be heartily reciprocated byothers.
A Georgia Tech Success Story. Shortly after he assumed the role as
Georgia Tech’s president, Professor Peterson engaged the Georgia
Tech community in developing and implementing a 25-year strategic plan. Launched in conjunction with the Strategic Plan was the
public phase of Campaign Georgia Tech, which to date has raised
more than $1.15 billion towards a $1.5 billion goal. This effort will
help the Institute realize the goals outlined in the strategic plan,
add endowed chairs and professorships, scholarships and fellowships, and construct facilities.
In his short time at Georgia Tech, he has realigned and restructured the research organization, communications and marketingand the ofﬁce of government and community service for greater
effectiveness; championed efforts to strengthen the Institute’s
leadership in innovation; expanded strategic partnerships; andworked to maximize Tech’s impact throughout the state, region,
nation, and the world.
A Champion for the Underrepresented. As provost at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, Professor Peterson played a key role in theinstitutional transformation and dramatic improvement in thequality, size and diversity of the faculty – overseeing the hiringof nearly 40 percent of the faculty, increasing the total number oftenured and tenure-track faculty by 20 percent, and improving
the diversity of the tenured/tenure-track faculty by more than doubling the number of underrepresented minorities and increasing
the number of women by 40 percent. In addition, during his tenure
as Provost, the quality, size and diversity of the student body increased, with the number of full-time Ph.D. students increasing
by 25 percent.
As chancellor of the University of Colorado, Professor Peterson
provided leadership and expanded the role of the University. During his three-year tenure, freshman applications increased by 35
percent, the number of underrepresented minorities in the freshmen class increased by 38 percent, sponsored research increasedby more than 18 percent and private philanthropy for the university increased by nearly 80 percent.
A leader in national education and research agendas Throughout
his career he has helped to establish national education and research agendas in the United States. He has served as a memberof a number of congressional task forces, research councils, andadvisory boards, including the Ofﬁce of Naval Research (ONR),
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), theDepartment of Energy (DOE), the National Research Council(NRC), and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). In addition,
he has served as a member of the Board of Directors and Vice President for Education for the American Institute of Aeronautics andAstronautics (AIAA) and is currently serving as a member of the
U.S. Council on Competitiveness.
In 2007 Professor Peterson served on the National Security
Higher Education Advisory Board for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 2008 he was appointed by U.S. President George W. Bushto serve as a member of the National Science Board (NSB), which
oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF) and advises the
President and Congress on national policy related to science andIn Celebration / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 58 (2013) 3–5

engineering research and education. In 2010 he was named bythen U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke as a member of the
National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship(NACIE). In June 2011 he was named by President Barack Obama
to the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) steeringcommittee.
Throughout his career, he has served on the editorial boards of
14 national and international journals, such as the ASME Journal ofEnergy Resources Technology, the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, theAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Journal of
Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, and the International Journal of
Heat and Fluid Flow. He has served as chair of the Petroleum Division of ASME Executive Committee and the ASME Heat Transfer
Division Executive Committee.
From August 1993 to September 1994, he served as an IPA at
the National Science Foundation, where he was the program director for the Thermal Transport and Thermal Processing Program. In
2001 Professor Peterson served on the National Academies – SpaceStudies Board, Committee on Microgravity Research, in Washington, D.C.
As a result of his numerous scientiﬁc contributions and administrative leadership, Professor Peterson is recognized as a national
leader and is recognized worldwide as a leader in shaping higher
education in the United States and internationally.
He is esteemed for his roles as an outstanding professor inteaching and research and for his ongoing leadership role in shaping higher education in the United States. On the occasion of his
60th birthday, it is a great pleasure and honor for his students, colleagues and friends to recognize his distinguished accomplishments. We wish him a very happy 60th birthday!
Hongbin Ma
Mechanical Engineering Department,
University of Missouri,
Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
Tel.: +1 573 884 5944; fax: +1 573 884 5090
E-mail address: mah@missouri.edu
Mark Anderson
Solute Consulting, USA
P.S. Ayyaswamy
University of Pennsylvania, USA
Adrian Bejan
Duke University, USA

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Yildiz Bayazitoglu
Rice University, USA
Gang Chen
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Ping Cheng
Shanghai Jiaotong University, PR China
Vijay K. Dhir
University of California at Los Angles, USA
James T. Dickey
Aerospace Corporation, USA
Amir Faghri
University of Connecticut, USA
John R. Howell
University of Texas at Austin, USA
Yogesh Jaluria
The State University of New Jersey at Rutgers, USA
Michael Jensen
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
Satish G. Kandlikar
Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Calvin Li
Villanova University, USA
Brian Niznik
Qualcomm, USA
Borivoje B. Mikic
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
W.J. Minkowycz
University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Robert J. Moffat
Stanford University, USA
Jay Ochterbeck
Clemson University, USA
Terry Simon
University of Minnesota, USA
Received 6 September 2012
Received in revised form 26 October 2012
Accepted 26 October 2012
Available online 30 November 2012