10-22-97
Contacts:
Warren DeVries, Mechanical Engineering, (515) 294-5560
Teddi Barron, Engineering Communications, (515) 294-0262
Skip Derra, News Service, (515) 294-4917
IOWA STATE ESTABLISHES BERGLES PROFESSORSHIP IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
AMES, Iowa -- A $500,000 endowment by Arthur Bergles, a former department chair, will establish the Bergles Professorship in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University.
The Bergles Professor, who will be selected through a national search, will provide leadership and mentoring in developing faculty, curricula and programs in the thermal sciences within the department. The Bergles Professor also will pursue interdisciplinary thermal science opportunities, and will promote interaction with practicing engineers to assure leadership in the relevance of Iowa State's thermal sciences programs.
Arthur Bergles, Centerville, Mass., served as chair of mechanical engineering at Iowa State from 1972 to 1983. He recently retired from the faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y., where he was engineering dean from 1989 until 1992.
"The Bergles Professorship will recognize a person of leadership and excellence, both at Iowa State and nationally, in teaching and research in thermal systems," said Warren DeVries, chair of mechanical engineering.
Bergles is considered a foremost authority in the enhancement or augmentation of convective heat transfer. His pioneering work in classifying various enhanced heat transfer devices has been widely acclaimed. He took the lead in transferring laboratory results to professional practice. As a result, his work has led to considerable energy and cost savings for industry.
After serving as a Fulbright Fellow in Germany and earning his doctorate in 1962 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bergles joined MIT's faculty in 1963 as Ford Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. In 1966, he was named associate director of MIT's Heat Transfer Lab, and in 1967 he became chair of the school's Engineering Projects Lab. In 1970, he went to the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.
In 1972, Bergles came to Iowa State as chair of the mechanical engineering department. He was director of the department's Heat Transfer Lab, which he established, and played an instrumental role in the funding and construction of the Black Engineering building. In 1981, he was named Anson Marston Distinguished Professor.
In 1986, Bergles was named Clark and Crossan Professor of Engineering and director of the Heat Transfer Lab at Rensselaer.
Bergles is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. An active leader in several professional societies, he was president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1990-91), and received the organization's highest distinction of Honorary Membership (1996). Bergles is a Fellow of ASME, the American Society for Engineering Education, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"I hope the endowment will attract or help retain an outstanding senior faculty member in the thermal sciences," Bergles said. "I think the opportunities to do that are better at Iowa State than at other places, because of the long-term commitment the mechanical engineering department has to that area of study."
The Bergles' gift is one of the most recent to Campaign Destiny: To Become the Best, the largest fund-raising effort in ISU history. Conducted by the ISU Foundation and launched in September 1996, the campaign is nearing $187 million of its $300 million goal.
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Revised 10/22/97