Ralph Aldredge and Vinod Narayanan Elected ASME Fellows
Mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE) professors Ralph Aldredge and Vinod Narayanan are two of the newest American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Fellows. Fellowship recognizes ASME members with over 10 years of experience and with significant achievements in engineering teaching, research and service in mechanical engineering or a related field.
Aldredge and Narayanan join 13 other UC Davis faculty and emeriti who have received the honor. They will be recognized at an upcoming ASME event.
“It’s truly an honor,” said Aldredge. “I thank my sponsors and colleagues who have chosen to honor me with this distinction for my efforts in education and scientific research and development.”
Aldredge is a leader in research and education in mechanical engineering. His research focuses on combustion, fluid dynamics and bio-transport and he is known for his analysis and simulation of flames, releasing a flame motion simulation app called Level Set in 2017. He received B.S. degrees in mechanical engineering and French at Carnegie Mellon University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University.
At UC Davis, Aldredge was integral to developing the UC Davis’ holistic review admissions policy and led the UC Board of Admissions and Relations with Scholars (BOARS), where he developed systemwide freshman and transfer admissions policies. He connects directly with students as the faculty advisor for the UC Davis chapter of the Black Engineers Association and as a mentor for the McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, which strives to increase the number of graduate students from underrepresented groups. Since 2019, he has served as the College of Engineering’s Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies. His students, he says, are what keeps him driven.
“To the many students who continue to inspire and challenge me to do all that I can to contribute toward enhancing the quality of engineering education, I am most grateful,” he said.
Narayanan is well-known for his research on process intensification of heat and mass transport using jets and microchannels. At the Supercritical carbon dioxide Thermal Energy Enhancement Laboratory (STEEL Lab) in the UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center (WCEC), he and his team design and test novel heat exchanger systems for high temperature and high pressure applications in power generation, solar thermal energy and waste heat recovery. Along with engineers and graduate students at the WCEC, Narayanan works on advancing solutions to increase energy efficiency of building and industrial processes.
Narayanan received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University and joined UC Davis in 2015. For his work, he has received an NSF CAREER Award, along with the Leadership Award from the ASME International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels and Minichannels (ICNMM). His research is being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, NSF, the Office of Naval Research and the California Energy Commission.
“I am humbled that colleagues in my professional community consider my contributions worthy of this recognition,” he said.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers is the world’s largest professional society for mechanical engineers, boasting over 100,000 members from over 140 countries around the world. Founded in 1880, the society promotes mechanical engineering and related fields through leadership, supporting its members and helping address technology-related challenges that are critical to the public