Purdue professors selected for U.S. State Dept. fellowships
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Two Purdue University professors have received Jefferson Science Fellowships from the U.S. Department of State, where their expertise and insights will help guide U.S. foreign policy.
Selected as 2010 fellows were Suresh V. Garimella, Purdue's R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Jay Gore, the Reilly Professor of Combustion Engineering and director of the Energy Center in Purdue's Discovery Park.
They are among 10 fellows selected this year.
"Professors Garimella and Gore are very well-deserving of this prestigious honor," said Richard O. Buckius, Purdue's vice president for research. "It's also important to note that it's quite unusual for any university to have more than one faculty member selected as a fellow in the same year."
The program is administered by the National Academies of Science and Engineering and funded by the State Department. All Jefferson Fellowships are contingent upon awardees obtaining an official U.S. government security clearance.
"This honor is a rare recognition of a faculty member's contributions to science, technology and engineering," said Leah Jamieson, Purdue's John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering.
Each fellow spends one year at the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Agency for International Development for an on-site assignment in Washington, D.C., that also may involve extended stays at U.S. foreign embassies and missions.
The program was formed in 2003 to establish a new model for engaging the American academic science, technology and engineering communities in the formulation and implementation of U.S. foreign policy. The fellows remain available to the State Department or USAID for short-term projects for five years after they complete their one-year assignments.
"As a Jefferson Science Fellow, I hope to learn about the role scientists and engineers can play in truly influencing public policy," Garimella said. "With my background in energy and information technologies, I would be looking to provide accurate scientific information to inform public policy debate in these areas. I am also excited that I may be able to learn about, and contribute to, a broader range of subjects as well."
Garimella is director of the NSF Cooling Technologies Research Center. His research interests include work to develop new types of cooling technologies for computers and investigating the precise physics behind how cooling takes place in miniature systems. He has co-authored more than 350 refereed journal and conference publications, edited or contributed to several books and has been recognized with various research and teaching awards.
He is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, associate editor of the journal Thermal Science and Engineering Applications, and an editor of Applied Energy and Experimental Heat Transfer. Garimella earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1985 from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Ohio State University in 1986 and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989.
Gore, a professor of mechanical engineering with courtesy appointments in aeronautics and astronautics and chemical engineering, was associate dean of engineering for research and entrepreneurship from 2002-2007 and is the founding director of the Energy Center in Discovery Park. Gore, a 1991 Presidential Young Investigator award winner, founded the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program at Purdue. The SURF program received the employer of the year award in 2008 from the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience. He is a fellow of the ASME and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and serves as an associate editor of the AIAA Journal. He has served as the Central States Section Chair and U.S. Technical Editor of the 26th International Symposium for the Combustion Institute (International).
He specializes in combustion and radiation heat transfer with applications in pollutant reduction, efficiency enhancement and fire safety. Gore has authored or co-authored more than 300 archival journal and conference papers and book chapters. He has received more than 50 grants and contracts from more than six different federal agencies and four major energy corporations.
"As a Jefferson Science Fellow, I plan to learn more about global policy aspects of grand challenges in areas ranging from energy to medicine," Gore said. "I also hope to learn how institutions of higher education such as Purdue can help in finding solutions to some of these problems."
Purdue has had two previous Jefferson fellows: Melba Crawford, interim associate dean of engineering for research and professor of agronomy, civil, and electrical and computer engineering; and Alexander King, former head of the Purdue School of Materials Engineering and now director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University.
Writer: Emil Venere, 765-494-4709, venere@purdue.edu
Sources: Suresh Garimella, 765-494-5621, sureshg@ecn.purdue.edu
Jay Gore, 765-494-1610, gore@purdue.edu
Richard O. Buckius, 765-494-6209, rbuckius@purdue.edu
Leah H. Jamieson, 765-494-5346, lhj@purdue.edu