This award will provide travel support for US Scientists to attend workshops, organized under auspices of ISHMT (Indian Society for Heat and Mass Transfer) and ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) from Dec. 28-31. The workshops are centered on five topical areas related to thermal fluids science and engineering and multiphase flow phenomena and are designed to nurture discussions on the major challenges in this area with the intent of initiating new collaborative teams and sustaining past Indo-US research collaborations. The US participants have varied levels of experience - ranging from graduate students to early career academicians to senior faculty members and reputed industrial practitioners (including women and minorities). Engaging researchers early in their career will facilitate long term collaborations enabling a globally-engaged workforce. Topics covered in the workshops encompass both fundamental and applied aspects of emerging technologies that are impacted by heat and mass transfer. In addition to enriching the cross-cultural and educational experiences of the participants, the workshops will also augment Indo-US cooperation through information sharing, germinating institutional links, and sparking new research topics.
A website will be developed by the PI at Texas A&M University for wider dissemination of the report on the workshop outcome that will be submitted to NSF. The report will also include discussions on the experience of the US delegates. The report will be highlighted in panel discussions and presentations at the International Heat Transfer Conference (IHTC 2014) in Japan for publicizing the collaborative research activities internationally among the broader scientific community for enhancing participation in the future. The recent spurt in the R&D investments in India and other Asian countries can be leveraged effectively by joint Indo-US collaborative ventures. This will help the researchers based in the US to maintain their research effectiveness and impact by leveraging collaborations with prominent research programs in India and researchers from other Asian countries. Women and minority participants at the workshops will add to the diversity.
Intellectual Merit Five Indo-US research workshops were conducted to bolster research collaborations between researchers in US and India on topics relating to thermal-fluids sciences and engineering. The workshops were organized under the aegis of the 10th ISHMT-ASME Heat and Mass Transfer Conference (December 28-31). While the ISHMT-ASME conference was conducted at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Kharagpur), the five workshops were organized at five other locations to facilitate interactions between US delegates and researchers (including students) from academia, industry and national laboratories/ centers across India. The five locations and the dates for the workshops are: Bangalore (December 18-19), Ropar (December 21-22), Mumbai (December 26-27), Murthal (January 2-7), and Kanpur (January 2-4). The workshops and conference were very well attended and provided a platform for seeding research collaborations. Broader Impacts The US delegation to the workshops and conference consisted of 23 researchers and their demographic breakup is provided in Table 1. In their solicitation of participants from US to the workshop and conference, the organizers strived to address the mission of the National Science Foundation to encourage the participation from underrepresented groups as well as that from career researchers. As seen from Table 1 – a significant number of participants were either from under-represented group or early-career researchers. This NSF travel grant partially supported the travel expenses for several of the US delegates to these workshops. Local expenses (such as boarding, local transportation and some of the meals) were covered by the local co-organizers of each workshop through fund-raising from sponsors in India, such as IEEE (CPMT Bangalore Chapter), Indo-US Science and Technology Foundation, Government of India – Ministry of Human Resources through the Technology Education Quality Improvement Program (TEQIP/ QIP), Indian Institute of Science (IISc – Bangalore), IIT-Ropar, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi, Government of Haryana, IIT-Kanpur. Two of the keynotes speakers for the conference supported their own travel expenses through other sponsors: Dr. John Lienhard (MIT), Dr. Jayathi Murthy (University of Texas at Austin). Two participants could not attend because of delays in securing a visa for international travel: Dr. Evelyn Wang (MIT) and Dr. Marc Hodes (Tufts University). The NSF Travel Grant also enabled the partial travel support for two industrial participants : Dr. Arun Muley (Boeing) and Dr. (General Electric Corporate R&D/ GE-CRD). Travel support for one participant (Dr. Mark Spector, Office of Naval Research/ ONR) was provided directly by his own employer. Table 1. Participants from the US supported by NSF Travel Grant for the Indo-US Workshops on Thermal-Fluids Sciences and Engineering. Workshop Name, [Total US Speakers, Panelist and Participants in each workshop], [Women and members of other under-represented groups, Early Career Researcher (students, post-doctoral fellows, untenured/ tenure track faculty)] International Workshop on Thermal Design and Management in Electronics, Bangalore (December 18-19) [7] [2] [3] Recent Advances in Micro/ Nano-Scale Heat Transfer and Applications in Clean Energy Technologies, IIT-Ropar (December 21-22) [6] [0] [2] International Workshop on Multiphase Flows: Fundamentals and Applications, IIT-Bombay (December 26-27) [7] [1] [1] Advanced Energy and Thermal Systems, DCRUST, Murthal (January 2-7) [5] [0] [1] International Workshop on Combustion, IIT-Kanpur (January 2-4) [3] [0] [0] TOTAL [28] [3] [7] OUTCOMES US-India research collaborations were advanced through the various activities: which included the workshop presentation including plenary and keynotes by several of the participants from the US, panel discussions, and site visits in India (e.g., visit to the Panipat thermal power station). PLENARY AND KEYNOTE LECTURES: The delegates presented keynote and plenary lectures in the 10th International Heat and Mass Transfer Conference on areas of emerging research in thermal-fluids science and engineering. Plenary and keynotes were delivered by the US delegates to the conference: Dr. (Dean) Vijay K. Dhir, UCLA Dr. Jayathi Murthy, University of Texas at Austin (UT) Dr. P.S. Ayyaswamy, U. Penn Dr. John Lienhard, MIT Dr. Mark Spector, ONR Dr. A.K. Tolpadi, GE Dr. M. F. Modest, University of California Merced Poster presentation sessions and paper presentation sessions at the conference enabled students and researchers to display their accomplishments as well as explore collaborative endeavors. More than 600 participants registered for the conference. The conference is organized every two years and is the premier conference in thermal-fluids sciences and engineering. The workshops were organized on dates close to the conference which enabled the participation of the plenary/ keynote speakers from the conference in the workshops as well. The delegates from US to the workshops participated in panel discussions, keynote lectures, tutorials, etc. Participation of early career researchers, minority faculty as well as post-doctoral scholar and a woman graduate student were the highlights of the workshops. Several discussions enabled the identification of future research collaborations which have led to plans for visits by researchers from India to US institutions, funding solicitations (e.g., from Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, TEQUIP, etc.), AFOSR, etc.
