Distinguished Professor and Dean Emeritus Vijay Dhir Named to European Academy of Sciences and Arts

UCLA Samueli School of Engineering Dean Emeritus Vijay Dhir, a distinguished professor emeritus of mechanical and aerospace engineering, as well as chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been elected as a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in Austria, the non-governmental association brings together more than 2,000 leading scholars and practitioners — among them 32 Nobel Prize winners from across Europe — who are elected for their achievements in science, arts and governance. They are grouped into seven classes and Dhir will be a member of its technical and environmental sciences cohort.

Dhir joined the UCLA faculty in 1974, and remains an active faculty member to this date — teaching classes and leading research at the Boiling Heat Transfer Lab at UCLA, where the group has contributed to the ever-expanding knowledge in the field of heat transfer. 

As dean of UCLA Samueli from 2003 to 2015, Dhir oversaw the school’s expansion, adding more than 90 new faculty members, growing student enrollment from 4,000 to more than 5,000 and establishing 10 major externally funded research centers in emerging fields. Under his leadership, the school established its Bioengineering Department and launched its Master of Science in Engineering Online program, which has been ranked the No. 1 online engineering master’s program by the U.S. News and World Report for the second year in a row and six times in 10 years.

During Dhir’s tenure, UCLA Samueli also added two new buildings: Engineering V, which houses the school’s Bioengineering and Materials Science and Engineering departments; and Engineering VI, which includes the 250-seat Mong Learning Center — thanks to the generous support of alumnus David Mong. Dhir also helped strengthen the school’s Computer Science Department and specialized facilities for metrology.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering since 2006, Dhir is also a fellow and honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and a fellow of the American Nuclear Society (ANS). Among the many awards he has received are ASME’s Heat Transfer Memorial Award, the Donald Q. Kern Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Max Jakob Memorial Award (jointly presented by ASME and AIChE) and the Technical Achievement Award from the American Nuclear Society’s Thermal Hydraulics Division. 

Dhir has served on several prominent national scientific and technical committees, including the National Research Council’s steering committee to outline the future study of physical and biological sciences in space, and a National Academy of Science committee that examined the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident with the aim of improving the safety of U.S. nuclear plants. Aside from his work at UCLA, Dhir serves as a trustee of the Oregon Institute of Technology, and is a fellow of the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University.