MAE - Chair | Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Biography
Bill Ma is a Curators’ Distinguished Professor, chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the director of the Multiphysics Energy Research Center (MERC) at the University of Missouri. He received his Ph..D in 1995 from Texas A&M University. Since he joined MU in 1999, he has conducted active research in the fields of phase-change heat transfer, heat pipes, ejector refrigeration and thermal management. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Intel Corp., Dell, Rockwell Science Center, Outokumpu, Foxconn, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Exxonmobil, the U. S. Army, Northrop Grumman, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Air Force Research Laboratory, the Leonard Wood Institute, Rockwell Automation, Gore-Tex, the Department of Education, the MU Research Board and the University Research Council.
Ma’s fundamental contributions to oscillating heat pipes (OHPs), which are well summarized in his book “Oscillating Heat Pipes,” is enable to develop the OHP thermal control technology and make the engineering applications of OHPs possible resulting in ground-breaking applications of OHPs in aerospace engineering and the fourth-Generation of Spacecraft Thermal Control Technology (for more information on fourth-Generation of Spacecraft Thermal Control Technology, read here and here). His research efforts, led to the establishment of ThermAvant Technologies (TAT) (www.thermavant.com), where he is the president and co-founder, have made ThermAvant become the world’s leader in the OHP thermal control technology, the sole company providing the OHP thermal control technology to the top defense companies in the U.S. and a winner of the 2018 100 R&D Award. His earlier heat pipe research on capillary flow, thin film evaporation, and micro/nanostructures had resulted in the low-cost highly efficient heat pipe heat sinks. ISoTherM (Innovative Solution of Thermal Management) consortium, where he was the founding director, was supported by Intel to develop innovative cooling technologies for laptop and desktop computers.
Ma’s fundamental contributions and ISoTherM consortium have contributed substantially to the advancement of heat pipe applications in computer cooling. In addition, Ma’s cutting-edge research and fundamental findings have resulted in many other innovations and inventions producing a variety of products such as drink-now coffee mugs, innovative evaporative coolers, and heat pipe dehumidifiers. In 2020, he was elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. His contributions are well documented with over 310 publications, including one book, seven book chapters, 165 refereed journal papers, and 18 patentable technologies. He was the technical program chair of the 6th ASME International Conference of Micro/Nanoscale Heat and Mass Transfer. He was co-founder and co-chair of the first International Conference of OHPs (2019). He is or was an associate editor for several journals including ASME Journals and Heat Transfer Research.
Education
Ph.D. from Texas A&M University
MS from Lamar University
MS from Dalian Maritime University
BS from Dalian Maritime University
Technical Focus
Website
Multiphysics Energy Research Center (MERC)
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