CEEE Co-Director Vikrant Aute Honored With Faculty Award

Vikrant Aute, co-director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Energy Engineering, has been awarded the 2024 Dean’s Outstanding Performance Award for Professional Track Faculty. Aute received the award at the school’s annual faculty and staff awards ceremony on May 10. The honor recognizes the educational and research contributions of professional track faculty in the A. James Clark School of Engineering.

Aute’s research contributions are considered pivotal in the development and enhancement of next-generation heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigerant (HVAC&R) systems and components. Highlights include leading the development of novel shape-optimized air-to-refrigerant heat exchangers that are 20–40% better performing than the current state of the art. Aute has gained industry-wide recognition for spearheading the development of modeling and optimization platforms that transform the way HVAC&R components and systems are designed.

Aute, a research professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of CEEE’s Modeling and Optimization Consortium, was lauded for his influential research accomplishments in the field of HVAC&R over his 20-plus years at the University of Maryland. He is a Fellow of ASHRAE and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and recipient of the Provost’s Excellence in Research Award for Professional Track Faculty at the University of Maryland.

"I am honored to receive this award,” Aute says. “It is a collective recognition of the great students, faculty, and staff at CEEE that I have the privilege of working with."

Published May 20, 2024