Pınar Mengüç

M. Pinar Mengüç, after graduating from Ankara Science High School, received his BS and MS degrees from ODTU/METU in Ankara, Turkey, and his PhD from Purdue University, USA in 1985. He joined to the University of Kentucky and promoted to the ranks of associate professor and professor in 1988 and 1993, respectively, and eventually selected as the Engineering Alumni Association Chair Professor in 2008. He was a visiting professor at Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy during 1991 and at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, during 1998-99 academic year.

He joined Özyeğin University, Istanbul in 2009 as the founding Head of Mechanical Engineering. The same year, he established the Centre for Energy, Environment and Economy (CEEE/EÇEM). Mengüç’s research areas include radiative transfer, nanoscale transport phenomena, applied optics and sustainable energy applications. His research programs have been funded by more than 60 grants from several agencies in the US, in Europe and in Turkey, with more than 10 million USD funding in Kentucky and the additional 3 million Euro in Turkey. Over the years, he has guided more than 70 MS and PhD students, and post-docs researchers. He is the author/co-author of more than 150 archival papers, 220 conference publications, four books, and several book chapters. He holds six patents, including a triadic patent. He is one of the three Editors-in Chief of Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer (JQSRT) (since 2006) and an Editor of Physics Open (since 2019). He is a fellow of both ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineering) and ICHMT (International Center for Heat and Mass Transfer), and a Senior Member of OSA (Optical Society of America).

Mengüç, with his start-up company STI, was honored with a R&D100 Award in 2005 based on a particle characterization technique they developed. He received 2014 Knowledge Transfer Award and 2015 Outstanding Researcher Award, both from Ozyegin University. In 2018 he 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. He received two major national awards with the CEEE researchers; the team was chosen for the first place in Efficiency Awards category by the Turkish Ministry of Industry and Technology (2019), and the first place for the Energy Efficiency Awards category presented jointly by Istanbul Chamber of Commerce and the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (2020). Mengüç is an elected member of Science Academy of Turkey and currently serving in its executive board.