Spotlight on Sadik Kaka and Arunava Majumdar to Become Honorary Members of ASME

Spotlight on Sadik Kaka and Arunava Majumdar to Become Honorary Members of ASME Spotlight on Sadik Kaka and Arunava Majumdar to Become Honorary Members of ASME This year, the Society will honor 10 individuals for their accomplishments at the ASME Honors Assembly to be held on the evening of Nov. 18, during the 2013 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress Exposition in San Diego, Calif. Two of the honorees, Sadik Kaka and Arunava Majumdar, will be awarded ASME Honorary Membership at the ceremony. First awarded in 1880, the founding year of the Society, Honorary Membership recognizes a lifetime of service to engineering or related fields. Sadik Kaka Sadik Kaka, Ph.D., a distinguished scientist and renowned educator whose career spans more than five decades, is being recognized for seminal and pioneering achievements in transient two-phase flows, fuel cells and micro/nano heat transfer research and engineering; and for sustained contributions to education as an organizer of conferences and author of well-known textbooks on heat transfer and heat exchangers. Dr. Kaka a resident of Ankara, Turkey, is a professor of mechanical engineering at TOBB University of Economics and Technology (TOBB ET). Kaka received his Dipl.-Ing. degree in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Istanbul in 1955 and later received a scholarship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned master's degrees in mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering in 1959 and 1960, respectively. He returned to Turkey, where he joined the mechanical engineering department at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara. During his tenure at METU, from 1960-1982, he played a significant role in developing the university's mechanical engineering department into an world-renowned institution for heat transfer research and applications. The founder of heat transfer education and research at METU, Kaka he established and directed the Heat Technique Research Unit, a research center sponsored by TBITAK, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. While at METU, he also held a number of governmental and research positions, including board member of TBITAK, secretary general of the Turkish Atomic Energy Commission, and member of the NATO Science Committee, the OECD/NEA (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency) Steering Committee and the Cento Scientific Coordinating Board. After two years as a visiting professor, Kaka was appointed as a full professor of mechanical engineering with tenure at the University of Miami and served as department chair from 1990-1998. In 2008 Kaka became professor emeritus at the University of Miami and joined TOBB ET. An ASME Fellow, Kaka is a member of the Heat Transfer Division's (HTD) K-16 Committee on Heat Transfer in Electronics, and previously served as a member and chair of the Max Jakob Award Committee. He has been involved in various ASME conferences held in Istanbul. Kaka founded the ASME Student Section at the TOBB ET and is a member of the ASME European Section. He received the Society's Heat Transfer Memorial Award in 1997 and HTD's 75th Anniversary Award earlier this year. Arunava Majumdar ASME Honorary Membership will also be awarded to Arunava Majumdar, Ph.D., during this year's Honors Assembly. Dr. Majumdar, a resident of Orinda, Calif., and vice president for energy at Google Inc., He is being recognized for pioneering research in micro- and nanoscale heat transfer; and for distinguished service on the Journal of Heat Transfer editorial board, as the founding chair of the ASME Nanotechnology Institute, as founding director of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agencyâ€"Energy (ARPAâ€"E) and as acting under secretary of energy. Majumdar is widely recognized as one of the foremost leaders in energy innovation. He has distinguished himself in research, teaching, university and professional service, and national service. At Google, Majumdar directs Google.org's energy initiatives and advises the company on its broader energy strategy. In October 2009, Majumdar was nominated by President Barak Obama and confirmed by the Senate to become the founding director of DOE's ARPAâ€"E, where he served until June 2012. The sole U.S. government agency dedicated to transformational energy research and development, ARPAâ€"E identifies and invests in innovative projects to rapidly create new technologies. From March 2011 to June 2012, Majumdar also served as the acting under secretary of energy and senior advisor to the secretary of energy. Before his DOE appointment, Majumdar was the Almy and Agnes Maynard chair professor of mechanical engineering, and materials science and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and the associate laboratory director for energy and environment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Majumdar, an ASME Fellow, served as associate editor of the Society's Journal of Heat Transfer from 1998-2001 and founding chair of the ASME Nanotechnology Institute from 2003-2006. He is the recipient of several ASME awards, including the Melville Medal in 1992, the Gustus Larson Memorial Award in 2001 and the Heat Transfer Memorial Awardâ€"Science in 2006. The ASME Honors and Awards program is sponsored by the ASME Foundation, through the management of award endowment funds set up by individuals, corporations or groups. For more information on the 2013 Honors Assembly and each of this year's 10 award recipients, visit www.asmeconferences.org/Congress2013/Honors.cfm.