Carlos Fernández-Pello
Prof. Carlos Fernández-Pello (born in Asturias, Spain) is a faculty member of the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Mechanical Engineering. He also serves as an associate dean in the Graduate Division at Berkeley, where he oversees the Graduate Diversity Program, the American Indian Graduate Program, Graduate Division’s academic services, fellowships, publications, and websites. His research interests are in combustion, heat and mass transfer, microgravity combustion, micro and meso-scale combustion, ignition and flame propagation, smouldering and transition to flaming combustion.
Prof. Fernández-Pello has experience in dozens of research projects, with more than 400 published papers and book chapters. During his academic career, he has advised many students: more than 19 Ph.D.’s, 45 M.Sc.’s, and numerous undergraduate students and teacher assistants. He has been involved in teaching and research activities since the 1970s in different institutions around the globe, mainly in U.S., Spain, France and Japan.
Life
Prof. Carlos Fernández-Pello received his Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics and Engineering Science from University of California, San Diego in 1975. Earlier, he received his M.Sc. degree (1973) at U.C. San Diego, and his Bachelor in Aeronautical Engineering at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain, 1968). He arrived to the USA from Spain in 1972 with the support of fellowships from the Fulbright and Juan March Foundations (Spain). After working as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard, Princeton University and Northwestern University, he joined UC Berkeley in 1980. Since then, he has held the following academic positions: Associate Dean of the Graduate Division (since 2003), Vice-Chairman of Graduate Matters, Mechanical Engineering Department (1997–2000), Vice-Chairman Graduate Council (2000–2001), Professor (since 1986), and Associate Professor (1982–1986).
Prof. Fernández-Pello has served as the principal investigator for dozens of projects sponsored by a wide range of institutions: US NASA Space Flight Program, DARPA, the European Space Agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Spanish Ministry for Industry and Technology, the French and the Italian Centers for National Research, the US National Science Foundation, the Japan New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, the US Army Research Office, and Osaka Gas. He has served as an engineer in the industry at SENER (Spain), and continues to be an active consultant to governments, industry and the private sector, mainly in the USA but also in Europe and Asia. He is a Fellow of The Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, The Combustion Institute, The International Association for Fire Safety Science, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Also, he is or had been a member of the Universities Space Research Association, the Microgravity Science and Applications Council, the board of directors of the Center for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UC Berkeley, the NASA Space Station Science and Applications Advisory Committee, and of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is an active member of the editorial advisory board in some of the most important journals in the field of combustion.
Research
Prof. Fernández-Pello has research experience in several topics of combustion, but he is better known for his contributions in three main topics: Flame spread over solid fuels, smouldering combustion and microscale combustion.
Favorite Quotes
Professor Fernández-Pello constantly shares his wisdom on life with his students. Some of his favorite sayings are "Life is a valley of tears" and "You have to be more pragmatic".
Students
Among his former PhD students, there are:
- Chris Lautenberger (2007)
- Olivier Putzeys (2007)
- David Rich (2006)
- Bennett Sprague (2006)
- Mark Mikofski (2005)
- Guillermo Rein (2005)
- Elizabeth M. Kallman (2005)
- Amnon Bar-Ilan (2004)
- Aaron Knobloch (2003)
- Kelvin Fu (2001)
- Yingying Zhou (2001)
- David C. Walther (1998)
- Ralph A. Anthenien (1998)
- Jose Luis Cordova (1997)
- Stephen Da-Yen Tse (1996)
- Christopher Yu-Hang Chao (1994)
- Jose L Torero (1992)
- Elizabeth R. Cantwell (1992)
- Liming Zhou (1991)
- Corey M. Dunsky (1991)
- Ho-Shang Lee (1988)
- Bryan Amos (1987)
- Hai-Tien Loh (1986)
- Roger Rangel (1985)
- Chien-Pei Mao (1984)
Among his former MS students, there are:
- Jaime B. Herren (2007)
- Coke Sendagorta (2005)
- Ronda Ropes (2005)
- Robin Titus (2005)
- Thomas L-H. Lo (2003)
- David Sadeli (2003)
- John P. Dirner (2003)
- Andreja Stevanovic (2002)
- Shivani N. Mehta (2002)
- Eve Andersson (1998)
References and external links
- Fernández-Pello's webpage
- Combustion Processes Laboratories' webpage
- Some of his latest publications