Mechanical Engineering alumna Yildiz Bayazitoglu (MS ME ’69; PhD ’74) has been selected to receive the 2013 ME Alumni Merit Award.
Dr. Bayazitoglu joined Rice University in 1977 and has served as the Harry S. Cameron Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering since 1996. Previously, she was assistant professor at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey and a visiting assistant professor at the University of Houston. She earned her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.
Dr. Bayazitoglu has made significant contributions to thermophysical property determination and containerless processing omaterials, radiation and convective heat transfer, phase-change heat transfer, oil reservoir fluid flow heat transfer, cryogenic tank thermal analysis, hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells, solar collector analysis, micro- and nanoscale heat transfer, and thermal modeling of the human head and optimization of hypothermic therapies. Her work has been published in reputable journals and high caliber proceedings, and she has more than 200 publications in technical journals and conference proceedings. She also has co-authored two undergraduate textbooks, Elements of Heat Transfer and A Textbook for Heat Transfer Fundamentals. Currently, she is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Thermal Sciences.
Dr. Bayazitoglu has amassed a long list of honors, including the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Distinguished Educator Award, many awards from Rice University and, from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Heat Transfer Memorial Award. She is a fellow of the ASME and of the American Association of Advancement of Science.
In 2012, Dr. Bayazitoglu was made an honorary member of the ASME, and she received the SWE’s Achievement Award, the highest award given by the organization.