Heat Transfer Pioneer Tim Fisher Named Honorary Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers

Tim Fisher, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has been named an honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, one of the society’s oldest and most prestigious distinctions.

Fisher, who holds the John P. and Claudia H. Schauerman Endowed Chair in Engineering, is one of five engineers to receive the honor this year. He is recognized for pioneering research at the intersection of heat transfer and nanomaterials, ranging from material processing to thermal characterization and modeling, and for his distinguished service to the profession through conference organization and technical committee leadership.

First established in 1880, the same year the society was founded, ASME’s honorary membership is awarded for a lifetime of service to engineering or related fields that “contributes significantly to the attainment of the goals of the engineering profession.” Fisher is also an ASME Fellow.

At UCLA, Fisher leads the Nanoscale Transport Research Group, which investigates nanoscale heat transfer, electronics cooling, carbon nanomaterial synthesis, solar-thermal fuels and materials production, coupled electro-thermal effects in materials and devices, microfluidics, biosensing and thermal systems. His team also develops computational methods ranging from atomistic to continuum scales. Fisher is also a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.

Fisher has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed journal papers, participated in hundreds of conference proceedings and presentations, and advised dozens of doctoral students. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of the ASME Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer.

Among the many other accolades Fisher has received are the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, the ASME McDonald Mentoring Award and an Avram Bar-Cohen Best Paper Award from the Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems.

Before joining UCLA, Fisher was a faculty member at Vanderbilt University and Purdue University, where he also held an endowed chair.

Previous UCLA Samueli recipients of ASME Honorary Membership include distinguished adjunct professor Portonovo Ayyaswamy in 2018, adjunct professor Wilbur “Webb” Marner in 2015 and distinguished professor emeritus and former dean Vijay Dhir in 2012.