ADRIAN BEJAN has pioneered numerous original methods in thermodynamics, such as entropy generation minimization, scale analysis of convection, heatlines and masslines, and the constructal law of design and evolution in nature. He is ranked among the hundred most cited authors in all engineering (all fields, all countries, living and deceased) by the Institute of Scientific Information (isihighlycited.com). His h-index is 45.
He is the author of more than 540 peer-reviewed journal articles and 24 books, including Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Constructal Theory of Social Dynamics (Springer, 2007), and Design with Constructal Theory (Wiley, 2008). His treatises Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics (Wiley) and Convection Heat Transfer (Wiley) are now in their third editions and are used as graduate textbooks in universities around the world.
He has been awarded sixteen honorary doctorates by universities in eleven countries, including the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (2003) and the Sapienza University of Rome (2009). He has received numerous national and international society awards, such as:
Max Jakob Memorial Award (American Society of Mechanical Engineers & American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 1999)
Donald Q. Kern Award (American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 2008)
Honorary Member, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2011
Ralph Coats Roe Award (American Society for Engineering Education, 2000)
Luikov Medal (International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer, 2006)
James P. Hartnett Memorial Award (International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer, 2007)
Edward F. Obert Award (American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2004)
Worcester Reed Warner Medal (American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1996)
James Harry Potter Gold Medal (American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1990)
Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award (American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2001)
Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award (American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1988)
Bejan received all his degrees from MIT: BS (1971, Honors Course), MS (1972, Honors Course), and PhD (1975). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, at the Miller Institute of Basic Research in Science (1976–1978). He was appointed as a full professor of mechanical engineering with tenure at Duke University in 1984, and J. A. Jones Distinguished Professor in 1989.
J. PEDER ZANE is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is an award-winning columnist who has worked for the New York Times and the News & Observer (Raleigh). He has edited and contributed to two books for W. W. Norton, Remarkable Reads: 34 Writers and Their Adventures in Reading (2004) and The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books (2007).