Bergles, Arthur E.

Arthur E. Bergles (New York City, New York, August 9, 1935) engineering educator (Ph,D.), Professor of Engineering.
He was born of Slovenian parents, who had immigrated to the U.S. They subsequently moved to upstate New York, where he graduated from high school in Rhinebeck. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), receiving S.B and S.M. degrees. He then spent a year at the Technische Hochschule München as a Fulbright Fellow. Returning to M.I.T. he received his Ph.D. in 1962 for a thesis Subcooled Boiling Heat Transfer and Burnout in Tubes of Small Diameter. He then was appointed Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a member of the Research Staff at the M.I.T. National Magnet Laboratory. He served as Associate Director of the Heat Transfer Laboratory, Chairman of the Engineering Projects Laboratory, and was promoted to Associate Professor. In 1970, he became Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 1972 he was appointed Professor and Chairman of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University, a position he held until 1983. He was the founding Director of the Heat Transfer Laboratory from 1972-1986.He was named Anson Marston Distinguished Professor of Engineering in 1981. He spent 1979-1980 at Universität Hannover with an Alexander von Humboldt U.S. Senior Scientist Award of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was In 1986 he was appointed Clark and Crossan Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), a position he held until 1997 when he became Emeritus. He also established the Heat Transfer Laboratory at RPI. He served as Dean of Engineering from 1989-1992. In 1999 he was appointed Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering at the University of Maryland (College Park) and Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at M.I.T., positions he currently holds. Since 1997 he is also Postgraduate Professor at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He held a Guest Professorship at the Danish Technical University in 1979 and in 1998.
He was elected a Corresponding Member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts on June 7, 2001.
Arthur Bergles’ research interests include heat transfer enhancement, two-phase flow and boiling/evaporation heat transfer, internal laminar flows, cooling of microelectronic equipment, and heat exchangers for thermal control of buildings. He is generally recognized as the world leader in enhancement of heat transfer, the increase of the heat transfer rate above that achievable with normal technology. He has classified 14 means of enhancement and performed original research on many of the techniques. His work resulted in data and correlations for equipment design or upgrade. He published 29 books (mostly edited), 408 technical papers, over 100 technical reports, and has presented nearly 400 invited lectures in the U.S. and in many foreign countries. His work is widely cited.
He was made Honorary Professor at Beijing Polytechnic University (China) in 2001 and at St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University (Russia) in 2007. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 1992, the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) in 2000, the Academy of Sciences and Arts (Slovenia) in 2001, and the National Academy of Sciences (Italy) in 2003. He received the honorary degrees Doutor Honoris Causa from the University of Oporto, Portugal in 1998, the D. Ing. (Honoris Causa) from Rand Afrikaans University, South Africa in 1999, and Dr. of Engineering Energetics (Honoris Causa) from the Sapienza University of Rome in 2009. He is a member of numerous technical societies. Particularly active in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), he was an Editor of the Journal of Heat Transfer and Chairmen of the Heat Transfer Division (HTD). He was ASME Vice President for Professional Development and a two-term Governor of the society. He was the 1990-1991 President of ASME, a 120,000 member association.
Among other recognitions, he received from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics: Associate Fellow (1996); American Association for the Advancement of Science: Fellow (1988); American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AlChE): Donald Q. Kern Award (1990) and Fellow (2004); American Society for Engineering Education: Fellow (1985), Lamme Medal (1987), and Centennial Certificate and Medallion (1993); American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers: Fellow (1992), Distinguished Service Award (1996), F. Paul Anderson Medal (2000), Holladay Distinguished Fellow Award (2002), Life Member (2008), and Boston Chapter Hall of Fame (2010); Assembly of World Conferences on Experimental Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics: Nusselt-Reynolds Prize (2001); ASME: Fellow (1979), Heat Transfer Memorial Award (1979), Dedicated Service Award (1984), 50th Anniversary Award of the HTD (1988), Honorary Membership (1996), ASME Medal (2000), and HTD Distinguished Service Award (2008); AIChE and ASME: Max Jakob Memorial Award (1995); French Thermal Society: International SFT Award (2002); International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer: Fellowship Award (1988) and Luikov Medal (1998); and Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems: Achievement Award (2002).
Arthur Bergles was featured in the September 2011 issue of Slovenian American Times.

(September 2011)