Srinath Ekkad
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has named Srinath Ekkad, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering, as fellow of the ASME.
Considered the highest-elected grade of the organization’s membership, a fellowship is conferred upon a person with at least 10 years of active engineering practice and who has made significant contributions to his or her profession. Ekkad researches experimental heat transfer methods, enhanced heat transfer, external surface heat transfer and film cooling for turbine blades, electronic cooling, coal gasification, combustion, and micro-channel heat exchangers.
Ekkad also serves as a director of the Center for Clean Coal Energy, part of Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, and is involved with the College of Engineering’s Global Lab for Thermal Phenomena. Ekkad’s research at Virginia Tech is funded by corporate sponsors, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.
The association previously awarded Ekkad with its “Journal of Heat Transfer” Outstanding Reviewer Award in 2006 and the Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer in 2004.
Ekkad joined the mechanical engineering faculty in 2007 after nine years at Louisiana State University and two years as a senior project engineer in the Turbines Department at Rolls-Royce Allison Engine Co. in Indianapolis. He has published more than 110 peer reviewed journal and conference publications, and is the co-author of “Gas Turbine Heat Transfer and Cooling Technology,” an influential book in his field of study.
Ekkad completed his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 1995 and his M.S. from Arizona State University in 1991, both degrees in the area of turbine cooling and heat transfer. He previously earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in India in 1989.