Thermal Management Systems Digital Summit

Dr. Bashar AbdulNour is an accomplished engineer, manager, and educator.  He has twenty-seven years of diverse industrial and academic experience.  His work is frequently referenced by the engineering community.  He is recognized for his exemplary record of professional and community service.

Dr. AbdulNour is currently the Supervisor of the Core Thermal Systems Analysis team within Electrified Powertrain Engineering at Ford Motor Company.  He leads a team of engineers working on developing innovative technologies for electrified mobility applications.  His areas of expertise are Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), thermal management, and systems engineering.  He is a certified Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) Black Belt.  Previously, Dr. AbdulNour was the Manager of the Thermal Analysis and Validation Group at General Dynamics Land Systems.  He led a team of analysis and testing engineers working on the design and development of thermal systems of all types of ground vehicles.

Dr. AbdulNour holds three graduate degrees from Michigan State University, including a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering.  He started his professional career as a tenure-tracked Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wyoming.  He later joined Ford Motor Company where he developed extensive knowledge of vehicle climate control and powertrain cooling engineering, powertrain attributes, CAE, as well as the lean technical methods employed in product development.  His hands-on work with modeling and simulation tools and methodologies, testing techniques, and technology development earned him diverse engineering and management expertise with progressive responsibilities.

Dr. AbdulNour has over 55 published journal and conference papers.  He has been the chairman of more than 30 technical sessions at national and international conferences.  He is the co-organizer of the Climate Control Session of SAE International Congress since 2001 and was a technical keynote speaker during SAE World Congress in 2011-2017.  Currently, he is the Chairman of SAE Thermal Management Activity Committee and Thermal Management Systems Symposium (TMSS).  He is the recipient of SAE’s Forest R. McFarland Award.

Wilko Jansen has been a Thermal Management Technical Specialist at Jaguar Land Rover since 2003. His responsibilities include setting out the thermal management strategy within Jaguar Land Rover, delivering methods and capability and leading the development for thermal management on all Jaguar Land Rover vehicles. His current focus is on the simulation methods, driving the virtual engineering of the thermal attribute within Jaguar Land Rover. He has more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry in the fields of thermal management, aerodynamics, and powertrain cooling ranging from simulation to physical testing. Wilko received his degree from The Institute of Automotive Engineering in the Netherlands. He is an active member of the SAE Thermal Management Systems Activity and has organized and chaired technical sessions.

 

Ales Alajbegovic received his Ph.D. in engineering physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He started at Exa Corp. as the Applications Manager responsible for the development of external aerodynamics applications using Lattice-Boltzmann Method. His next appointment was at AVL where he was a Team Leader responsible for the development of the multiphase flow CFD capabilities in FIRE code. After AVL, he joined General Dynamics as a Senior Research Scientist. He returned to Exa Corp. where his last role was Vice President responsible for the Ground Transportation Applications.

Jeff Bozeman is a Vehicle Performance Engineer at General Motors working in Cabin Human Thermal Comfort and HVAC technology. He is focused on finding ways to improve driver and passenger thermal comfort while using the absolute minimum amount of energy possible. His team uses thermal physiology to pinpoint exactly where climate control small air streams will provide maximum comfort without blasting cold or hot air where it is unneeded. Bozeman has worked in HVAC for 31 years following a BSME from Kettering University and a MSME from University of Michigan where he specialized in fluid dynamics and heat transfer. He is a past chairman of the SAE Thermal Management Committee and has co-authored SAE papers. He has been an organizer for the SAE Congress Climate Control Technical Sessions since 2003.
 

Hector Cano is a Senior Heat Exchanger Engineer at Bergstrom Inc. in Rockford, IL. He has over 15 years of experience in development and testing HVAC, PTC, and thermal systems in the automotive industry. He holds a master’s in integrated vehicle systems engineering from Purdue University and a certificate in design for customer value and market success from Stanford University.

Edward Gerges works closely with OEMs to design and develop new products and open new markets for Dana's emerging technologies. He serves as a technical expert in several SAE steering committees. He also serves as a member of the board of directors for Green Auto Powertrain, an industrial initiative sponsored by the Government of Ontario. Gerges earned a master’s in mechanical engineering and an MBA from McMaster University.

Sowmya Jayaraman is a global simulation leader for propulsion cooling and thermal management at General Motors and is responsible for simulation procedures, best practices, and standard methods across global regions. She has 20 years' expertise in 3-D CFD and 1-D simulation methods development and program execution in powertrain cooling, front-end airflow, HVAC, cabin comfort, controls, systems integration, energy, and thermal management across a span of vehicle architectures. She received GM’s Boss Kettering award for the innovative thermal management in Chevy Volt. Jayaraman received her master’s degree in aerospace engineering from University of Maryland, College Park and is a certified DFSS black belt recipient.
 

Vamshi Korivi is working as a team leader for the Thermal & Signature modeling team at U.S. Army, Tank Automotive Research and Development Center (TARDEC) in Michigan, where he oversees fluid & thermal simulation work related to Army ground vehicle fire suppression, propulsion cooling, Hydrodynamics, and cabin cooling. Korivi has about 20 years of experience in the area of CFD and his work resulted in more than 30 technical publications. In 1995, he received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering with emphasis on CFD from Old Dominion University.

Kevin Laboe is responsible for FCA's Advanced Powertrain Thermal Management Group, including powertrain cooling system architecture creation for new powertrains and development of advanced waste heat technologies. He has more than 25 years of experience in the automotive industry and holds several climate control, engine cooling and hybrid patents, as well as, a patent pending in ORC systems. Laboe has presented several technical papers to SAE, VTMS, ASME and a Daimler Technical Conference. He received his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering at Michigan Tech.

Jason Lustbader is a Senior Research Engineer at the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the Center for Transportation and Hydrogen Systems, which he joined in 2001. He leads NREL's CoolCab, heavy-vehicle thermal management research project. Lustbader's other recent research interests include traction drive power electronics cooling and light-duty vehicle climate control. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

At Calsonic Kansei, Gursaran D. Mathur is responsible for product design, development, and research in the area of automotive thermal systems. His specialization is in the areas of heating ventilating and air conditioning of automotive, residential, and commercial AC systems; indoor air quality and cabin comfort; heat exchangers including internally and externally enhanced surfaces; two-phase fluid-flow and heat transfer (boiling and condensation); alternate refrigerants; heat-recovery systems including two-phase thermosiphon loops and heat pipe heat exchangers; system and component modeling of thermal systems; experimentation in the HVAC/thermal systems; and solar heating and cooling. Mathur has published more than 100 technical papers in the area of thermal systems.  

 

Upon earning his Ph.D. in energy sciences, Christophe Petitjean joined Valeo Climate Control as Thermodynamic Engineer. Since 2011, he has served as Low Emission Thermal System Program Director and then by 2017 as Worldwide Test Laboratory Director in Valeo Thermal System Business Group. Outside Valeo, he is also member of various organizations such as SAE Standard Committee, UN IPCC/Technical Economical Assessment Panel (Kyoto Protocol). He is Chairman of the Expected New Emission Regulations @ CLEPA (EU supplier Association) for CO₂ and Pollutants tailpipe Emissions.

Ronald Semel is a technical expert in the area of thermal management systems and heat exchanger design. He has been responsible for creating new and innovate technologies and processes for thermal management systems and has been award three patents and published three technical papers. Semel earned a B.S. in engineering physics from the University of Arizona and an M.S. in mechanical engineering from Oakland University. He is a member of the SAE Thermal Management Systems Activity and has organized and chaired numerous technical sessions as well as being an associate editor for the SAE Journal of Mechanical Engineering.

 

Alaa EL-Sharkawy is responsible for development of best practices and guidelines for component packaging, vehicle instrumentation, thermal testing, and material thermal degradation. He also develops analytical tools for time-temperature analysis, transient component temperatures estimates. He has more than 25 years of automotive experience in vehicle thermal management. He has developed and taught training classes for Chrysler engineers in the areas of thermal protection, material thermal degradation and applications of heat transfer in vehicle thermal management. El-Sharkawy received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Wayne State University. He is a certified professional engineer and a certified DFSS black belt recipient. 

 

Kumar Srinivasan is Senior Manager responsible for Aero/Thermal Development and Advanced CAE Integration at FCA US LLC.  He is responsible for aerodynamics and thermal development for all NAFTA products at FCA.  This includes simulation and test validation of all vehicle aero/thermal systems.  He has over 20 years of experience in application of simulation tools in the automotive industry and over 25 papers in various aspects of simulation technology. He has been a member of the SAE Thermal Systems committee for the past 13 years and also served as its Chairman from 2011-2013. Kumar holds a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Cincinnati.

 

Andy Sutherland serves as Global Lead Thermal Systems Engineering for TI Automotive. Sutherland received his degree in automotive engineering design from the University of Coventry in the U.K. Before joining TI Automotive, he worked for BorgWarner for six years and spent 18 years at Ricardo.

Sudhi Uppuluri is the Principal Investigator and founder at Computational Sciences Experts group. He has over 15 years of experience in system simulation of automotive and aerospace systems. He holds a master’s in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a certificate in strategy and innovation from the MIT Sloan School of Business.

Matt Warner is Manager of Operations for Gamma Technologies, where he has worked for 18 years. In this role, he is responsible for sales, IT, quality assurance, and applications engineering for GT’s industry leading CAE system simulation software, called GT-SUITE. In previous positions at GT, Warner has worked with a variety of OEMs and suppliers to develop innovative solutions to their powertrain and thermal management challenges using system simulation. He has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and a M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in Dearborn.

As a CAE manager in the Engineering Division, Jie Zeng’s responsibilities at DENSO include product design and evaluation, R&D on new products, and CAE methodologies for automotive thermal systems Zeng specializes in CFD, 1-D system simulation, computational aero-acoustic analysis, FEA, automotive HVAC, refrigerant A/C system, vehicle under hood thermal management, heat exchangers, thermal product test evaluation, cabin thermal comfort, and indoor air quality. Zeng has published over 40 technical papers on CFD and HVAC. She was a member of the SAE Interior Climate Control Committee from 2003-2007. Zeng received her Ph.D in mechanical engineering from University of Tokyo, Japan.

Tao Zhan is an Air Resources Engineer at the California Air Resources Board. He is the agency's staff lead on greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicle air conditioning systems. He holds a Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Riverside. He is a licensed professional engineer in mechanical engineering.