International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 82 (2015) A1–A2

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

In Celebration

Professor Jean Taine on his 65th birthday

Our colleague and friend Jean Taine, Professor at École Centrale
Paris, celebrates his 65th birthday this year. It is our great pleasure
to take this opportunity to warmly thank him for all his achievements and to express our sincere acknowledgements for his outstanding contributions in the ﬁeld of radiative transfer and, moregenerally, in the ﬁeld of heat and mass transfer.
Professor Taine was born in Roubaix, north of France, on 13
November 1949, and he was raised in Lille, until 1969 when hejoined École Normale Supérieure de Cachan and University ParisXI. He prepared there a Master degree in Theoretical physics andlearned statistical physics and ﬂuid dynamics from professors R.
Castaing and A. Fert. Professors J. Brossel, C. Cohen-Tannoudjiand S. Haroche made him discover the physics of radiation. His
research was then heavily inﬂuenced by these eminent scientists.
He obtained his Doctorat ès Sciences from Paris XI University, Orsay,
in 1980 in the ﬁeld of molecular physics. His Doctorate work wason CO2 vibration relaxation through collisions with atoms and molecules, and the measurement of relaxation rates by means of thephotoacoustic method.
Professor Taine joined École Centrale Paris as Associate Professor
in 1976, and then as full professor since 1983. He took in thisfamous French engineering school (founded by Eugène Péclet andthree other scientists in 1829), the chair of heat transfer which
was held before him by Prof. Marcel Véron, and then by Prof.
Jacques Huetz.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2014.12.028

Since 1990, he founded and animated inside EM2C laboratory(Molecular and Macroscopic Energetics, Combustion) a researchgroup focused on the physics of energy transfer. His creative
research work led to major contributions in several topics. Witha strong background in molecular physics, he moved, as a young
professor, from collisional relaxation studies to spectroscopy withmajor emphasis on infrared radiative properties and radiativetransfer in high temperature gases such as H2O and CO2 encountered in combustion. This important ﬁeld was mostly unexplored
and, with the help of theoretical ab-initio approaches and several
experimental studies, he succeeded in establishing reliable spectroscopic databases (hot line positions, intensities and shapes),and in using these fundamental data to solve radiation transferproblems with the line-by-line approach. The development ofapproximate radiation models, based on the rigorous spectral
properties, enabled him to study theoretically the effects of molecular radiation combined with turbulent convection and with combustion, and to highlight many aspects of turbulence-radiationinteractions. More recently, he tackled the problem of radiative
properties and radiative transfer in anisotropic and nonhomogeneous porous media and developed an original statistical formalism
for homogenized radiative property characterisation, based on
tomographic and Monte Carlo techniques. This led him to propose
a generalized (non-Beerian) radiative transfer equation, using thestatistical absorption, extinction and scattering properties of themedium. This formalism found several applications such as hightemperature solar collectors, catalytic combustion, and the simulation of severe accidents in nuclear reactors. All these research topics found naturally many beniﬁcial cooperations with otheracademic or industrial partners. Among the French and European
industrial partners, he cooperated with most of aeronautic andspace, automotive, and huge energy producing or consuming
companies.
Professor Taine is also an excellent teacher. He has conceived
and took the responsibility of several courses like «statistical physics», «radiation in dense and dilute media», «heat transfer», «turbulent and coupled transfers», . . . which, each time, met great
enthusiasm from his students. He also introduced innovative
learning techniques like the course on «methodology» where theroles of teachers and students are somewhat reversed during
design and case studies, and, more recently, the «e-mentor heattransfer learning» which is a fully interactive and progressive
course including problems, guides for the students, etc. This learning technique was followed by approximately 250 students of École
Centrale Paris this year. Moreover, his textbook Transferts thermiques who had a ﬁfth edition in 2014 is taken as the reference formost teachers at the national level and was translated into English.

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In Celebration / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 82 (2015) A1–A2

He is the author or coauthor of several other books like «Energyissues», «A ﬁrst course on heat transfer», . . . He has supervised
about 30 PhD students who enjoyed his friendly guidance andintellectual rigor. They all had successful careers in leading academic laboratories or research centers of private companies.
Besides his local duties in teaching, research and academic
administration, Professor Taine has been extremely active to contribute to the national and international scientiﬁc community. Heis an Editor of the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transferand International communications in Heat and Mass Transfer andhas served as Associate Editor of EJP Applied Physics. He was member of International Scientiﬁc Committees for heat transfer conferences such as AIHTC and ICHMT, and served as chairman of theinternational scientiﬁc committee of 12th International Heat
Transfer Conference (Grenoble, 2002). He participated actively tonumerous other international conferences, particularly the seminars and symposia on radiative transfer. He has given many keynotes and invited lectures in major heat transfer conferences. The
sixth International Symposium on Radiative Transfer, organized
by ICHMT, was dedicated to him along with two other researchers.
On the national level, Professor Taine also took many responsibilities at the Ministry of research and universities of France. He wassuccessively in charge of Heat Transfer and Combustion at the Mission Scientiﬁque et Technique, then of Heat Transfer, Combustion
and Plasmas, and, ﬁnally, Deputy Scientiﬁc Director at the Direction
de la Recherche; head of Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical and Civil
Engineering and Energy.
Professor Taine’s professional activities have signiﬁcantly contributed to the advancement of radiation and heat transfer community. He is still active and full of ideas about science, learning,and how they may evolve. We congratulate him warmly on his65th birthday and wish him good health for many more years
and happiness in the company of his wife Dominique and his children and grand-children. We look forward to the continuation of
his achievements and his interactions on the highest scientiﬁcand educational levels.
R. Carminati
ESPCI ParisTech, PSL Research University, CNRS, Institut Langevin, 1 rueJussieu, 75005 Paris, France

J.-M. Hartmann
Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques (LISA),
UMR 7583 CNRS–Université Paris Est Créteil, Université Paris Diderot,
Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, 94010 Créteil Cedex, France
J.R. Howell
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas atAustin, 204 E. Dean Keeton St., Austin, TX 78712, USA
S. Maruyama
Institute of Fluid Science, Tohoku University, Katahira, Aoba-ku, Sendai
980-8577, Japan
W.J. Minkowycz
University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
842 West Taylor Street, Room 2049 ERF, Chicago 60607-7022, USA
M.F. Modest
University of California, Merced, 5200 North Lake Road, Merced, CA95343, USA
J.-F. Sacadura
INSA Lyon, Thermal Science Centre, CETHIL UMR 5008, Bat. Sadi Carnot,
69621 Villeurbanne cedex, France
R. Viskanta
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
B.W. Webb
Brigham Young University, A-387 ASB, Provo, UT 84602, USA
A. Souﬁani
M.Y. Perrin
Ph. Rivière
F. Enguehard
E. Iacona
Laboratoire EM2C, CNRS – UPR 288, Ecole Centrale Paris, 92295
Châtenay-Malabry Cedex, France