Speaker: Prof. F. Heberle
Title: Surface Technologies for Deep Geothermal Energy Systems
Dr. Ing F. Heberle is the Executive Director & Senior Research Associate at Zentrum für Energietechnik(ZET), Bayreuth und Umgebung, Germany. He is also the Coordinator of the TAO Graduate School, “Energy-efficient buildings” at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.
=======================================================
Speaker: Prof. M. Preißinger
Title: Your career in thermal engineering: it is all about your topic, people you meet and strategic decisions you make! Or is it all about luck?
Prof. Preißinger is head of research and member of the management board at FHV – Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences. Till March 2024, he was also head of the energy research centre at FHV. Before that, he was CEO of the Center of Energy Technology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and he was active in higher education policy. Prof. Preißinger is an expert in thermal energy systems, has led numerous research projects at national and international levels. He has more than 10 years of experience in research management and has supervised more that 40 B.Sc., M.Sc. and PhD students in his career.
=======================================================
Speaker: Prof. S. Garimella
Title: Heat Driven Cycles to Decarbonize the World: Ignore them at your peril!
Dr. Srinivas Garimella is the Hightower Chair in Engineering and Director of the Sustainable Thermal Systems Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the ASME and of ASHRAE. He is Editor of the Int. J. Air-conditioning and Refrigeration, and past Associate Editor of the ASME J. Heat Transfer and ASME J Energy Resources Technology, and of the ASHRAE SBTE Journal. He is Past Chair of the Advanced Energy Systems Division of ASME and was on the ASHRAE Research Administration Committee. He has mentored over 75 postdoctoral researchers, research engineers and students pursuing their M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, with his research resulting in over 375 archival journal and conference publications, a textbook on Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in Minichannels and Microchannels (2nd Ed., Elsevier 2014), and books on Condensation Heat Transfer (World Scientific Publishing, 2015) and Adsorption Heat Pumps (Springer Nature, 2021.) He is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (1999), the ASHRAE New Investigator Award (1998), the SAE Ralph E. Teetor Educational Award for Engineering Educators (1998). He received the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award (2024) and the Georg Alefeld award (2024) for outstanding and lifelong contributions to the field of sorption chillers and heat pumps. He also received the ASME Award for Outstanding Research Contributions in the Field of Two-Phase Flow and Condensation in Microchannels (2012) and the Prominent Researcher Award at the Micro Flow and Interfacial Phenomena Conference 2022 for sustained and outstanding contributions to the fundamentals of phase change heat transfer at mini‐ and micro‐scales and coupled heat and mass transfer in binary fluids. He was recognized with the Thomas French Distinguished Educator Achievement Award (2008) from The Ohio State University, and the Zeigler Outstanding Educator Award (2012) and the Sigma Xi Sustained Research Award (2023) from Georgia Tech.
=======================================================
Speaker: Prof. Zhibin Yu
Title: The Flexible Heat Pump: A Quasi-Two-Stage Cycle for Enhanced Efficiency and Broad Applications
Professor Zhibin Yu currently holds the Chair of Energy Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Liverpool. He leads the Energy Research Cluster within the School of Engineering and holds a prestigious Royal Society Industrial Fellowship (2023–2027). Prior to this, he held academic positions at the James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow: Lecturer (2012–2017), Senior Lecturer (2017–2019), and Professor of Thermal Energy (2019–2023). His research focuses on thermal energy technologies, with particular interest in the underlying thermodynamic, heat transfer, and fluid-dynamic challenges. He is committed to developing innovative solutions for sustainable heating, cooling, and power generation, with expertise spanning heat pumps, refrigeration, energy storage, district heating and cooling networks, organic Rankine cycle systems, and thermoacoustics. Professor Yu has led or contributed to over 35 research projects with a combined value exceeding £30 million, funded by EPSRC, Innovate UK, and the European Commission. He has published more than 180 research papers and is the inventor of the Flexible Heat Pump Cycle (PCT reference: WO2022069581A1), a technology that enables the next generation of high-efficiency, flexible heat pumps. He currently serves as Associate Editor for Applied Energy (Elsevier) and npj Thermal Science and Engineering (Springer Nature), Subject Editor for Applied Thermal Engineering (Elsevier), and Section Editor-in-Chief for Frontiers in Thermal Engineering. He also sits on the editorial boards of Energy Reports (Elsevier) and the International Journal of Green Energy (Taylor & Francis). Professor Yu is a Board Director of the International Association for Green Energy, and he served as Chair of the 15th International Green Energy Conference, hosted at the University of Glasgow.
=======================================================