M. Pinar Mengüc

M. Pinar Mengüç, after graduating from Ankara Fen Lisesi (Science High School), completed his BS and MS degrees at METU/ODTU, also in Ankara, Türkiye. He received his PhD from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA under Professor Ray Viskanta in 1985. He joined to the University of Kentucky the same year, where he was promoted to rank of professor in 1993 and was appointed as the Engineering Alumni Association Chair Professor in 2008. He was a visiting professor at Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy during 1991, at Harvard University-Massachusetts General Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts, during 1998-99 academic year, and at UCLA Samueli School of Engineering in Los Angeles in 2022.

He joined Özyeğin University (OzU), Istanbul in 2009 as the founding Head of Mechanical Engineering and helped the establishment of the then-new university. The same year, he founded the Centre for Energy, Environment and Economy (CEEE/EÇEM), which he is still directing. Mengüç’s research areas include radiative transfer, nanoscale transport phenomena, applied optics and sustainable energy applications in buildings and industry. He has authored/co-authored more than 165 journal papers, had more than 220 conference papers, 7 books, several book chapters and 7 patents. He has worked with more than 70 MS and PhD students and more than 10 Postdoctoral fellows, and several other professionals. His research was funded by more than 60 research and development projects in the US, in Europe and in Türkiye. Also, he was one the founders of a start-up company on characterization of nano- & micro-sized particles while he was in the USA.

He served as one of the three Editors-in Chief of Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer (JQSRT) from 2006 to 2024. He is a fellow of both American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) and International Center for Heat and Mass Transfer (ICHMT). he is an elected member of Science Academy of Turkey and served in its executive board from 2018 to 2024. He was also the Chair of the Executive Board of ICHMT during the 2023-2024 term. He is Fiba Holding Renewable Energy (FYE) Chair Professor at OzU since 2022.

In 2018, Mengüç received the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award in the category of Art, and in 2020 he was chosen as an Outstanding Mechanical Engineer by the Purdue University School of Mechanical Engineering. In 2023, he received Michael I. Mishchenko Medal from Elsevier/JQSRT for his contributions to radiative transfer and light scattering, and to the JQSRT community. In 2024, he received the prestigious Honor Award from Parlar Foundation at METU/ODTU in Ankara for his life-time achievements.