International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 52 (2009) 3882–3883

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

In Celebration

Professor D. Brian Spalding Sc.D., Ph.D., F.I.Mech.E., F.Inst.F., F.R.S., F.Eng.

Photograph courtesy Colleen King
Professor Brian Spalding was born at 1923 at New Malden, England. He obtained his BA and MA degrees in Engineering Science at
Oxford University in 1944 and 1948 and his PhD at Cambridge University in 1952 for a thesis on the combustion of liquid fuels. In1954 he joined Imperial College as a Reader in Applied Heat andin 1958 was appointed Professor of Heat Transfer. He was subsequently also Head of the Computational Fluid Dynamics Unit andheld both positions until his retirement in 1988.
At various times, he has been Visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley,
and the University of Minnesota; in the late 1970s he was Reilly
Professor of Combustion at Purdue University.
Prof. Spalding has written many scientiﬁc publications from asearly as 1949 with papers on thermodynamics, followed by publications on combustion, heat and mass transfer, boundary-layer
theory and computational ﬂuid dynamics.
Prof. Spalding’s main honours and awards include: Max Jakob Award
 Bernard Lewis Medal Fellow of the Royal Society Luikov Medal Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering Foreign Member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Global Energy Award Laureate

1978
1982
1983
1986
1989
1994
1994
2009

In 1974, Prof. Spalding founded Concentration Heat and Momentum Ltd., (known as CHAM) and remains its Managing Director
to this day. The company’s major product is the widely-used computer code, PHOENICS of which Prof. Spalding is the principal
author and continuing developer.
Prof. Spalding has been directly involved with both this journal
and the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer since their
inception in 1960 and 1968 respectively. In May 2008, ICHMT held
an international symposium1 on Computational Heat Transfer inMarrakech, Morocco in Prof. Spalding’s honour.
In addition to his numerous scientiﬁc interests Prof. Spalding
has had a lifelong interest in poetry from the viewpoints of both
reading and writing it. In recent years he has made, and published,
free translations of works by Pushkin which have continued hisinterest in poetry and matters associated with Russia, its language
and its people.
Prof. Spalding has been a campaigner based on his belief in freedom of the individual. In the late 1960s he became friends withProf. Benjamin Levich, then a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and was instrumental in assisting Prof.
Levich and his family to emigrate to Israel. As part of this campaign
Prof. Spalding started a series of Conferences, and an International
Journal, on PhysicoChemical Hydrodyamics (a subject pioneered byProf. Levich).

1Preliminary versions of some of the papers in this issue were presented at thatsymposium.

doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2009.04.001

In Celebration / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 52 (2009) 3882–3883

The Journal was published by Pergamon Press, which wasowned at the time by Mr. Robert Maxwell. Prof. Spalding also campaigned on Mr. Maxwell’s behalf during the 1970s in the period
when the ownership of Pergamon was not under his control. Prof.
Spalding, with others of a similar mind, encouraged the Editors ofvarious scientiﬁc journals, including the IJHMT, collectively tovoice their desire to have Mr. Maxwell back in control and this dulycame to pass.
Now in his 87th year Prof. Spalding continues to explore
computational ﬂuid dynamics with undiminished vigour. He enjoys working seven days a week with time out for speaking at
Conferences where he can meet colleagues and students and discuss matters of mutual interest, hopefully resulting in mutual3883

enjoyment. He also ﬁnds time to read (poetry and prose) andwrite (poetry and lectures) in addition to spending time withfamily and friends.
S.B. Beale
National Research Council, Montreal Road, Ottawa, ON,
Canada K1A 0R6
E-mail address: steven.beale@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
G. de Vahl Davis
The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
E-mail address: g.devahldavis@unsw.edu.au
Available online 6 May 2009