Bar-Cohen Elected Honorary ASME Member

Avram Bar-Cohen, chair of mechanical engineering and a Distinguished University Professor, was unanimously elected as an honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in June. He will receive a certificate of this honor at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition in Seattle, Wash., this November.

Bar-Cohen was selected for development of the scientific foundation for thermal management of electronic components and systems, specifically buoyant flows in channels, heat sink optimization and pool boiling of dielectric liquids. The ASME also cited his contributions and leadership in research, practice and education in the thermal management of micro and nanoelectric systems.

Honorary membership with ASME is regarded as recognition of a lifetime of service to engineering or related fields. The recognition was first awarded in 1880, the founding year of the Society. The roster of honorary members contains the names of leaders of world renown who were selected under carefully drawn procedures rigorously maintained by the society over the years.

University President C.D. Mote, Jr., the only other UM faculty member to attain this recognition, says, "Dr. Bar-Cohen is highly deserving of this prestigious recognition, having contributed so much to engineering. He is an excellent engineer, a gifted teacher, and a prolific scholar. To be selected by the profession for a lifetime of contributions to engineering is a distinction that is truly extraordinary."

Bar-Cohen is well known for his contributions to thermal science and engineering and at the Clark School continues his research in the thermal management of micro/nano systems. He has authored and co-authored two text books, some 300 journal papers, refereed proceedings papers, and chapters in books, and has delivered more than 60 keynote, plenary, and invited lectures at major technical conferences and institutions. Bar-Cohen has advised more than 50 Ph.D. and M.S. students, at the Clark School, University of Minnesota, and the Ben Gurion University in Israel.

At the recent ASME InterPACK Conference in Vancouver, Canada, Avram Bar-Cohen was honored with the InterPACK Achievement Award "for his long term and continued contributions in the field of Electronics and Photonics Packaging." The presentation of this bi-annual award was followed by Bar-Cohen's keynote lecture on "Hot Aisles to Hot Spots – Thermal Packaging for a Small Planet."

Published August 3, 2007