International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4459–4461

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

In Celebration

Professor Amir Faghri on his 60th birthday

This article is in commemoration of the 60th birthday of Professor Amir Faghri, his outstanding scholarly contributions to the heattransfer community, and his distinguished leadership in engineering education as a teacher, mentor, researcher and administrator.
He is a scholar of the ﬁrst rank and among the top in his ﬁeld ofheat transfer. Professor Faghri has made signiﬁcant fundamentalcontributions in the ﬁeld of transport phenomena in multiphaseand energy systems, with applications in heat exchangers, heat
pipes, energy storage, electronics cooling and fuel cells. Professor
Faghri is arguably the world’s leading expert in the area of heat
pipes and a signiﬁcant contributor to thermal-ﬂuids engineeringin energy systems. In this commemorative note, it is our great
pleasure and privilege to present to the global engineering colleagues some of the highlights of his career so that all can appreciate the true importance of his contributions.
Professor Amir Faghri was born in Isfahan, Iran on April 16,1951. He was raised by his father who was a veterinarian since
his mother died when he was ﬁve years old. His father played amajor role in developing Professor Faghri’s analytical and mathematical interests with a penchant for curiosity from an early age,
and in encouraging him to pursue his higher education in theUnited States. Professor Faghri started undergraduate education
with a full scholarship in Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State
University in 1970, and received the B.S degree with highest
honors in 1973. While being an undergraduate student, he wasmentored and introduced to the ﬁeld of heat and mass transfer

doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2011.05.025

by Professor James Welty, a recognized leader in heat transfer
and then Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department. Upon
graduation from Oregon State University, Professor Faghri went
to the University of California at Berkeley with a full graduate
fellowship to work with the late Professor Ralph Seban, a renowned scientist in the ﬁeld of heat transfer who established
Berkeley as a world-class center of excellence in the ﬁeld byrecruiting distinguished heat transfer faculty members including
the late Professor Chang-Lin Tien. Professor Faghri received hisM.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from theUniversity of California at Berkeley in 1974 and 1976, respectively.
He clearly showed his creativity, hard work and innovation fromthe start by completing all his higher education degrees, B.S, M.S.
and Ph.D., with distinction in six years.
Professor Faghri returned to Iran in 1976 and taught at
Aryamehr University (now Sharif University of Technology). He
was one of the founding faculty members and administrators
who established Isfahan University of Technology in 1977. Heserved on the faculty until 1980 (shortly after the revolution) asthe founding director of its Energy Division (now separated into
Mechanical and Chemical Engineering Departments). In 1981, thelate Chancellor of the University of California, Professor ChangLin Tien, personally invited Professor Faghri to join the Universityof California at Berkeley as a visiting professor to teach thermodynamics and energy courses. Following Berkeley, Professor Faghrijoined the faculty of Wright State University (WSU) in 1982 and4460In Celebration / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4459–4461

was promoted to Brage Golding Distinguished Professor in 1989.
He developed a nationally-recognized heat transfer group and laboratory at WSU, interacting extensively with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Air Force.
Professor Faghri joined the University of Connecticut (UConn) in
1994 and served as Head of the Mechanical Engineering
Department from 1994–1998, United Technologies Corporation
Chair Professor in Thermal-Fluids Engineering from 2004–2010,and Dean of the School of Engineering from 1998–2006. During
his tenure as Dean, Professor Faghri developed initiatives thatelevated UConn’s School of Engineering to unprecedented levelsof faculty productivity, and standing in the ﬁeld of engineering.
He successfully attracted corporate and alumni support to establish 17 endowed professorships, including 11 chair professorships.
He increased total enrollment by 106%, signiﬁcantly raised thenumber of valedictorians and salutatorians admitted per year to
the School of Engineering, increased the number of merit
scholarships by approximately 200%, and added three newbuildings/facilities. He also doubled the number of undergraduate
degree programs from 6 to 12. Professor Faghri was the founder(along with Professor Ted Bergman) of the Connecticut Global Fuel
Cell Center (recently renamed as the Center for Clean EnergyEngineering) at the University of Connecticut, with signiﬁcant
external support secured from private, state, and federal agencies.
Professor Faghri is the sole or leading author of four major
books and has published more than 300 archival technicalpublications including 200 journal papers. He has eight US patents
related to heat pipes, energy storage devices and fuel cells. Professor Faghri is presently serving on the editorial boards of eight scientiﬁc journals, including roles as executive editor, editor-in-chief,
founding editor, and honorary editorial board member, including
the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer and the International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer. He has received
many national and international honors and awards, including
the American Institute of Aeronautics Astronautics (AIAA) Thermophysics Award in 1988, the American Society of MechanicalEngineering (ASME) Heat Transfer Memorial Award in 1988, theASME James Harry Potter Gold Medal in 2005, and the ASME/AIChE
Max Jakob Memorial Award in 2010, which is the highest honor in
the ﬁeld of heat transfer given annually, without regard to society
afﬁliation or nationality, to an eminent scholar for distinguishedscholarly achievements and leadership in the ﬁeld of heat transfer.
Professor Faghri has been a longtime fellow of the ASME and anelected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering; he, in turn, has nominated and supported many colleagues for these and other fellowships and honors. He was also
inducted to the Oregon State University Council of DistinguishedEngineers in 1999.
Professor Faghri has served as a consultant to several major research centers and corporations, including Los Alamos and Oak
Ridge National Laboratories, Exxon Mobil, Fujikura LTD, and Intel
Corporation. He currently serves on the board of directors of RBC
Bearings Inc., and on the School of Engineering external advisoryboard at the University of California, Riverside. Professor Faghri
has received numerous external research contracts and grants
from the National Science Foundation, US Departments of Energy,Defense, and Education, NASA, and industry including General
Electric, United Technologies, Exxon Mobil, and Boeing.
Professor Faghri’s most profound scholarly contributions relateto his development of the fundamental theories that have enabled
today’s widespread deployment of macro- and micro-two-phaseenergy systems including heat pipes, heat exchangers and fuelcells. His research showed, for the ﬁrst time, the promise of heat
pipes as integral cooling devices for microelectronic equipment.
In the 1990s, he developed high heat ﬂux miniature heat
pipes for commercial cooling of laptop computer chips, whichhave been a principal contributor to the ubiquitous presence ofheat pipes for cooling microprocessors in present-day laptop
computers.
Professor Faghri’s other signiﬁcant fundamental technicalcontributions are in the areas of heat and mass transfer of thin ﬁlm
liquids, solidiﬁcation and melting, evaporation and condensation,
microgravity convection, and liquid jet impingement. His early
work in the 1970s characterized the role of interfacial waves onthin ﬁlm evaporation and condensation, and is now routinely citedin literature on the topic. In the 1980s, he unraveled complex problems, including convection in the presence of phase-change materials for thermal energy storage in outer space. This breakthroughled to rational design of these cooling systems for NASA and the US
Air Force. Over the last decade, Professor Faghri has focused hisefforts on fundamental and applied research related to advanced
micro- and macro-energy systems including fuel cells, heat pipes
and energy storage systems.
Also notable is his distinguished record of professional service
and leadership to the heat transfer and engineering communities.
In May 2007, Professor Faghri organized and chaired (withProfessors Raymond Viskanta and Ted Bergman as co-chairs) theNational Science Foundation sponsored workshop entitled ‘‘NSF
Workshop for Frontiers in Transport Phenomena Research andEducation: Energy Systems, Biological Systems, Security, Information Technology Nanotechnology,’’ which was attended by over
300 invited active members of the world’s heat transfer
community, to chart a roadmap for emerging research and education opportunities in transport phenomena. Most recently, he acted
as the founding editor-in-chief of Frontiers in Heat and Mass
Transfer and Thermal-FluidsPedia through the thermal ﬂuids central
website (https://www.thermalﬂuidscentral.org). Frontiers in Heatand Mass Transfer is a premiere open-access and peer-reviewed
e-journal available at no cost to authors or users, serving the needsof the thermal-ﬂuids community. Thermal-FluidsPedia is a freeelectronic comprehensive encyclopedia for professionals andstudents requiring information about thermal-ﬂuids science andengineering. It is authored and continuously updated by qualiﬁedcontributors and editors.
Professor Faghri has authored four major books: his signaturesole-author work, Heat Pipe Science and Technology (Taylor andFrancis, 1995), is acclaimed for its depth and breadth of coverage, and ranks as the most widely cited book on the subject ofheat pipes by Google scholar. His textbook (co-authored withProfessor Yuwen Zhang), Transport Phenomena in Multiphase
Systems (Elsevier, 2006), presented, for the ﬁrst time, a uniﬁed
fundamental treatise on all three forms of phase change—boilingand evaporation, melting and solidiﬁcation, and sublimation andvapor deposition. Most recently, he coauthored (with Professors
Yuwen Zhang and John R. Howell) Advanced Heat and Mass
Transfer (Global Digital Press, 2010), which is an excellent
intermediate and advanced textbook that covers the subject ofheat and mass transfer with a focus on the signiﬁcant advancesin the ﬁeld during the last decade. The textbook combines treatment of fundamental principles with practical and modernapplications.
Despite his numerous and lasting commitments as an administrative leader for over 15 years, Professor Faghri has simultaneously made major contributions to both personal research andprofessional service, including his continuous record of researchfunding and scholarship through journal publications, books andpatents. In recognition of the impact of his work, Elsevier awarded
him a certiﬁcate in 2009 for the most citations of one of his articles
in the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer for the years
from 2005 to 2008. His technical and administrative contributions
make him a true role model for future young engineers and faculty
members.

In Celebration / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4459–4461

Many of the graduate students and post-doctoral fellows whoworked under Professor Faghri’s guidance hold key positions asprofessors, presidents of companies, and chief scientists and technical mangers in leading companies and government laboratories.
Most who have been mentored by him or worked with him, admire
his exceptional intellect, integrity, generosity, civility, fairness, caring attitude and high expectations.
On behalf of his former students, colleagues and friends
throughout the world including the editors of this journal, we areall very grateful for his exemplary technical contributions and tremendous professional service, visionary leadership, encouraging
support, collegiality, and generosity to the heat transfer community and engineering profession. We enthusiastically wish him
continued professional success, happiness and good health formany years to come.
C. Thomas AvedisianCornell University
Adrian Bejan
Duke University
Yiding Cao
Florida International University4461

Vijay Dhir
University of California at Los Angeles
John R. Howell
University of Texas at Austin
Frank. P. Incropera
University of Notre Dame
W.J. Minkowycz
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (M/C 251),
University of Illinois at Chicago, 842 West Taylor Street, Room 2049 ERF,Chicago, IL 60607-7022, United States Tel.: +312 996 3467;
fax: +312 413 0447
E-mail address: wjm@uic.edu
G.P. ‘‘Bud’’ Peterson
Georgia Institute of Technology
Raymond Viskanta
Purdue University
Yuwen Zhang
University of Missouri
Available online 27 June 2011