Avram Bar-Cohen Announced Recipient of Prestigious Luikov Medal

ME Department Chair and Distinguished University Professor, Avram Bar-Cohen, has been announced as the recipient of the 2008 Luikov Medal for "outstanding contributions to the science and art of Heat and Mass Transfer and for activities in international scientific cooperation in conjunction with ICHMT programs." With this award, Bar-Cohen joins an illustrious list of heat transfer luminaries in recognition of his seminal contributions to the thermal science and engineering underpinning the cooling of modern electronic components and his profound impact on the international heat transfer community.

The Luikov Medal, awarded by the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer (ICHMT) to one individual every two years, is dedicated to Aleksey Vassillevich Luikov, a renowned Russian pioneer in the field of heat transfer and thermophysics. The Medal will be presented to Bar-Cohen at the 14th International Heat Transfer Conference in Washington, D.C. in August 2010.

During the past few decades, Bar-Cohen has defined and continuously redefined the field of thermal packaging through co-authored textbooks and monographs, review papers, pathfinding articles, numerous professional short courses and academic courses, invited Keynote lectures, and journal papers. His work has provided the techniques and tools needed to support the remarkable miniaturization, increased reliability, and functional capability that have been achieved in electronic products, from cell phones to supercomputers and from laptops to avionics. The heat generation, resulting from the inherent inefficiency of electronic devices, and their sensitivity to temperature have made Bar-Cohen’s leadership and contributions of critical importance to the electronic industry. He has been the major contributor to the development of the scientific foundation for thermal management of electronic systems and has played a leading role in the successful transformation of the electronic industry to widespread implementation of frontier breaking thermal science and technology.

Bar-Cohen received his S.B., S.M., and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has been Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Clark School of Engineering since 2001 and was named Distinguished University Professor in 2005.

Published October 27, 2009