ASME Fellows David Dornfeld and Karen Thole to be Honored at IMECE
ASME Fellows David Dornfeld and Karen Thole to be Honored at IMECE
David A. Dornfeld, Ph.D., and Karen A. Thole, Ph.D., will be among the nine engineering innovators who will be recognized by ASME for their contributions to the profession and society next month at ASME's annual Honors Assembly. The exciting multi-media event will take place Monday, Nov. 16 during the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE) in Houston, Texas.
Dr. Dornfeld, the chair of the mechanical engineering department at the University of California, Berkeley, will receive the M. Eugene Merchant Manufacturing Medal of ASME/the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) during the ceremony. The medal, established in 1986, is conferred upon an exceptional individual who has had significant influence and responsibility for improving the productivity and efficiency of the manufacturing operation.
Dornfeld, who is also the Will C. Hall Family Professor of Engineering and a professor of manufacturing engineering at UC Berkeley, is being recognized for outstanding contributions to manufacturing research and its implementation in industry through the development of life cycle analysis tools to quantify the environmental impacts of the manufacturing supply chain. The medal also celebrates his leadership in U.S. research in sustainable manufacturing.
A renowned leader in the international manufacturing research community, Dornfeld has been a member of the UC Berkeley faculty since 1997. He is also special division deputy of the Engineering Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The author of more than 400 published papers and three research monographs, Dornfeld is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Machining Science and Technology, a member of the international advisory board of the Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, co-editor of the International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing and co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing–Green Technology.
Dornfeld, an ASME Fellow, is actively involved with the Society, currently serving as a member of the ASME Press Advisory Committee and general chair of the 2015 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Education Leadership Summit. He is a past chair of the Production Engineering Division, a former chair of the ASME Honors and Awards Committee, and editor emeritus of the Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering.
Dr. Thole, professor and head of the department of mechanical and nuclear engineering at Pennsylvania State University, will receive ASME's George Westinghouse Gold Medal, which honors eminent achievement or distinguished service in the power field of mechanical engineering. She is being recognized for outstanding contributions toward better cooling of gas turbine airfoils, particularly the discovery of a leading-edge fillet to reduce vortices in airfoil passages, and the development of physics-based correlations for predicting microchannel cooling and film cooling.
An expert in heat transfer and cooling of gas turbine airfoils through detailed experimental and computational studies, Thole has made significant contributions to the field of gas turbine heat transfer through her research, her work as an educator, and as a leader in her professional community. After holding various positions at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Thole joined the Penn State faculty in 2006, where she founded the Steady Thermal Aero Research Turbine Laboratory. The facility is a center of excellence in heat transfer for one of the major gas turbine manufacturers.
Thole's research achievements have included the discovery of a novel fillet design to reduce heat transfer arising from vortices, and the development of physics-based correlations through the acquisition of detailed data for film cooling and microchannel cooling of turbine airfoils.
Since becoming a member of the Society more than 20 years ago, Thole has held a variety of leadership positions within ASME, including leader of the Energy Conversion and Storage Segment, chair of the board of directors for the ASME International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI), chair of the ASME Committee on Honors, and chair of the ASME Department Head Executive Council. Thole, an ASME Fellow, also served as a member of the ASME Center for Education board of directors and the Vision 2030 Committee. She is the recipient of a number of ASME awards, including two ASME Distinguished Service Awards and three IGTI Best Heat Transfer Paper Awards.
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