Turkish Academy of Sciences honors Engineering’s Bayazitoglu

By PATRICK KURP

Yildiz Bayazitoglu

Yildiz Bayazitoglu, the Harry S. Cameron Chair in Mechanical Engineering and a native of Turkey, has been named an honorary member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences.

The academy confers awards and fellowships to distinguished scientists, determines scientific priorities and proposes policies and legislation to the Turkish government.

Bayazitoglu received her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1974 and joined the Rice faculty in 1977. Her research has focused on radiation and convective heat transfer, phase-change heat transfer, thermophysical property determination and solar energy utilization design and analysis.

Her recent work has included container-less processing of materials, solutions to the electromagnetic radiation equation, molecular dynamics studies for nano-heat transfer, micro-channel fluid and heat transfer, bio-heat transfer and various oil-well thermal analyses.

Bayazitoglu’s honors include the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award in 2012 and the Distinguished Educator Award in 1997. In 2012 she was elected an honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering. In 2004 she was a recipient of the society’s Heat Transfer Memorial Award and in 2014 she received a Special Dedication Service Award from the society’s Heat Transfer Division. She currently serves as its representative to the International Center of Heat and Mass Transfer and a member of the society’s Committee of Honors.

She is also a fellow of the American Association of Advancement of Science, a fellow of the International Center of Heat and Mass Transfer and an associate fellow of the American Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Thermal Science published by Elsevier.

At Rice she has received the Brown Superior Teaching Award, the Outstanding College Associate Award, the Hershel M. Rich Outstanding Invention Award, the Graduate Student Association Teaching/Mentoring Award, the Chance Teaching Prize, the Faculty Impact Award and the Presidential Mentoring Award.