Poulikakos, Dimos, Prof.

Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies (Institute of Energy Technology)

 

Areas of Interest:

• Energy, Flows and Processes
• Micro and Nano Systems and Processes
• Medical Engineering

Biography
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Professor Dimos Poulikakos holds the Chair of Thermodynamics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, where in 1996 he founded the Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies in the Institute of Energy Technology. From October 1999 to September 2001 he was also the Head of the Institute of Energy Technology (two year rotating appointment). From October 2001 to September 2003 he was associate head of research of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH. He was the Vice President of Research of ETH Zurich, from 2005-2007.
Interfacial phenomena, thermodynamics and related fluid dynamics in emerging technologies are integral parts of his activities. The general topic of energy (both energy conversion as well as energy transfer) is at the center of many activities of his laboratory. Examples of technologies and related phenomena of interest are: Micro- and nanoscale energy conversion and transport, fuel cell technologies, microelectronics and high-density electronics (advanced manufacturing as well high performance liquid cooling), surface deposition processes for micro- and nanostructuring, and nanoelectromecanical systems (NEMS). Environmental and conservation aspects of energy technologies exemplified by energy reuse and optimization in energy intensive buildings such as (green) data centers fall well within the research activities of the laboratory. The second significant research and education component LTNT is biomedical thermofluidics with emphasis on the human body. The dual goal of these activities is understanding and modeling the basic phenomena involved, as well as developing biomedical technologies and dev He has published over 240 research articles in peer reviewed journals as well as numerous articles in reviewed proceedings of professional conferences and a graduate level textbook on Conduction Heat Transfer (Prentice Hall, 1994). He is the invited editor of a special volume of Advances in Heat Transfer (1996), dedicated to transport phenomena in materials processing. Among the awards he has received for his contributions are the White House/NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1985, the Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal in 1986, the SAE Ralph R. Teetor Award in 1986, the University of Illinois Scholar Award in 1986, and the Reviewer of the Year Award for the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer in 1995. He is the recipient of the 2000 James Harry Potter Gold Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for his contributions to thermodynamics and its applications in emerging technologies. He is a Russell Severance Springer Professor of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of California at Berkeley (visiting appointment 2002/2003). Professor Poulikakos was awarded the 2003 Heat Transfer Memorial Award by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in the science category "for outstanding and original research contributions to soldification, bio-fluid mechanics, porous structures and other areas of heat transfer science, and investigations into their application to new and emerging technologies." He was the 2004 Hawkins Memorial Lecturer in Heat Transfer at Purdue University, USA. He received the Dr. h.c. of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece in 2006. He was elected to the Swiss National Academy of Engineering (SATW) in 2008. Prof. Poulikakos is the recipient of the 2009 Nusselt-Reynolds Prize established by the Assembly of World Conferences on Experimental Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics to honor and commemorate Wilhelm Nusselt and Osborne Reynolds as experimentalists, researchers, educators and authors. It is given once every four years.
Professor Poulikakos has been an invited and keynote speaker in many conferences worldwide. He is the Editor in Chief of the Journal the Experimental Heat Transfer, and a member of the board of Editors of the Journal of Microscale and Nanoscale Thermophysical Engineering, the Journal of Porous Media, the International Journal of Thermal Sciences and the Intl. Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer. He was also an Editor of the Journal ACTA Mechanica in the period 2000-2005. He is the European Editor of the Intl. Journal of Transport Phenomena. He has served as an associate editor of the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, 1999-2002.