We are pleased to announce our plenary and keynote speakers for the 12th World Congress on Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer (MHMT 2027):
ENFHT Pleanry Speaker
Dr. Stavroula Balabani, University College London, UK
Stavroula Balabani (FIChemE, Professor of Fluid Mechanics) obtained a Chemical Engineering degree from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA, Greece) and a PhD from King’s College London where she started her academic career. She joined UCLMechanical Engineering in 2011 where she leads an experimental fluid mechanics group (FluME), applying high resolution, optical diagnostic techniques to probe complex flows and transport phenomena, both at the macroscale and microscale, with applications to healthcare, energy and manufacturing. Her research interests evolve around cardiovascular flows, fluid structure interaction, microscale flow technologies for energy recovery, diagnostics and drug delivery, particle suspension flows, viscoelastic instabilities and elastoinertia transitions in polymeric flows. She has received funding from EPSRC, BBSRC, EU, Innovate UK and charities (BHF, AVM Butterfly) and her research has appeared in prestigious fluid mechanics journals. Stavroula is a Fellow of IChemE and a member of various scientific committees, such as the EPSRC College, the Executive committee of the International Microflows Nanoflows conference (MNF), the Osborne Reynolds Day Scientific Committee, the British and Hellenic Societies of Rheology and the ICHMT Scientific Council. She also serves as an Editorial Board Member for the Medical Engineering and Physics Journal. https://wp.cs.ucl.ac.uk/flume/
CSP Plenary Speaker
Dr. Pedro Coelho, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Professor Pedro Coelho graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1984 and received his Ph.D. in 1992 from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of IST. He has about 120 papers published in international journals, and 150 papers presented at international conferences. He is co-author of a book on Combustion (in Portuguese) for undergraduate and master students. His research focuses on the numerical simulation of heat transfer and combustion processes. He is President of the Eurotherm Committee for the Advancement of Thermal Sciences and Heat Transfer since August 2026, and member of the Scientific Council, Assembly and Executive Committee of the International Centre of Heat and Mass Transfer. He is associate editor of the J. Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, Int. J. Thermal Sciences, and member of the advisory board of Computational Thermal Sciences, Heat Transfer Research and Int. J. Energy for a Clean Environment.
CSP Pleanry Speaker
Dr. Boo Cheong Khoo, National University of Singapore, Singapore
From 1998 to 1999, he was seconded to the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC, Singapore) and served as the deputy Director and Director of Research. In 1999, BC returned to NUS and spent time at the SMA-I (Singapore MIT Alliance I) as the co-Chair of High Performance Computation for Engineered Systems Program till 2004. In the period 2005-2013, under the SMA-II, he was appointed as the co-Chair of Computational Engineering Program. In 2011-2012, BC was appointed the Director of Research, Temasek Laboratories, NUS. He was the Director of Temasek Laboratories (2012-2025), and Director of Temasek Defense Systems Institute (2023-2025), both Research Institutes at NUS. BC Khoo serves on numerous organizing and advisory committees for International Conferences/Symposiums held in USA, China, India, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and others. He is a member of the Steering Committee, HPC (High Performance Computing) Asia. He has received a Defence Technology Team Prize (1998, Singapore) and the prestigious Royal Aeronautical Prize (1980, UK). Among other numerous and academic and professional duties, he is on the Editorial Board of International Journal of Thermofluid Science and Technology, Ocean Systems Engineering (IJOSE), Advances in Aerodynamics (AIA), International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems (IJIUS), The Open Mechanical Engineering Journal (OME), The Open Ocean Engineering Journal, Journal of Pipeline Science and Engineering, and Journal of Drainage and Irrigation Machinery Engineering. At Mechanical Engineering Department, BC has supervised/co-supervised and graduated more than 50 PhD students over the years and an equal number of MEng students. In the last couple of years, BC has engaged with numerous PhD students from Chinese Universities attached to the Department for purpose of research and sponsored fully by the CSC Scholarships.
ENFHT Pleanry Speaker
Dr. Afshin J. Ghajar, Oklahoma State University, USA
Afshin J. Ghajar is Emeritus Regents Professor and John Brammer Endowed Professor in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA and an Honorary Professor of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees all in mechanical engineering from Oklahoma State University. His expertise is in experimental heat transfer/fluid mechanics and development of practical engineering correlations. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Society of Thermal and Fluids Engineers (ASTFE). He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Oklahoma. Professor Ghajar has received countless teaching/service awards, such as the 75th Anniversary Medal of the ASME Heat Transfer Division, the ASME ICNMM Outstanding Leadership Award, and the Donald Q. Kern Award, among others. His research work has resulted in over 250 publications including professional journals, reports, books, peer-reviewed conference papers or symposium proceedings. His research achievements have also been documented by a large number of presentations as well as keynote and invited lectures all over the world. A 2020 study conducted by Ionnidis et al. of Stanford University [Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators (plos.org)], ranked nearly 160,000 scientists of all disciplines based on citations to their work over their career and for the year 2019, Professor Ghajar ranked in the top 1.3% of researchers in Mechanical Engineering and Transports category. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Heat Transfer Engineering Journal and is the Heat Transfer Series Editor for CRC Press (he has edited 13 books to date). He is the co-author of two popular textbooks, 4th (2011), 5th (2016), 6th (2020) editions, and 2025 Release of Heat and Mass Transfer – Fundamentals and Applications; 6th edition and 2026 Release of Fundamentals of Thermal-Fluid Sciences, both published by McGraw-Hill; and the author of Two-Phase Gas-Liquid Flow in Pipes with Different Orientations, Springer Briefs in Applied Sciences and Technology, published by Springer 2020, and Single- and Two-Phase Flow Pressure Drop and Heat Transfer in Tubes, Mechanical Engineering Series, published by Springer, 2022.
ICMFHT Plenary Speaker
Dr. Gherhardt Ribatski, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Dr. Gherhardt Ribatski is Full Professor of Multiphase Flow and Heat Transfer at the São Carlos School of Engineering, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. He received his BS, MSc. and Doctoral Degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of São Paulo. He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and Universidade da Coruña. His research interests cover pool boiling, falling-film evaporation and condensation, two-phase flows, flow induced vibration, flow boiling and condensation for external and internal flows, heat transfer enhancement, heat exchangers, phase-change in microchannels, IR thermography wastewater treatment and solar energy.
Prof. Ribatski is member of the Congress Committee of International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) and Brazilian Delegate to the Assembly for International Heat Transfer Conferences. He is member of Assembly of World Conferences on Experimental Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Virtual Institute of Two-Phase Flow and Heat Transfer, Scientific Council of the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer (ICHMT). He was Director Secretary (2016-2017) and is member and President of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering (2018-2021). He has served as coordinator of the CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel- Brazil) committee for evaluation of graduate programs in the areas of Mechanical, Mechatronics, Naval and Ocean, Aeronautical, Industrial and Petroleum Engineering. He is member of the area panel of Engineering of FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation – Brazil) and was Coordinator of the Graduate Program of Mechanical Engineering at São Carlos School of Engineering (EESC) of University of São Paulo (USP) from 2014 to 2019.
ICMFHT Plenary Speaker
Dr. Prashant Valluri, University of Edinburgh, UK
Professor Prashant Valluri is a Professor of Fluid Dynamics and the Director of Chemical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. He studied at Imperial College London where he finished his Doctoral Studies in Chemical Engineering in 2004. He chairs the UK Multiphase Flows and Transport Phenomena Special Interest Group (UK Fluids Network). He has expertise in numerical and theoretical techniques to study complex industrial multiphase flows. He co-developed the TPLS 3.0 open-source solver (https://sourceforge.net/projects/tpls/) that has yielded fundamental insights in applications including thermal management of microelectronics, pipeline flows, and post-combustion carbon capture. He is the PI/Coordinator of the recently awarded €1.7M five-continent (19 partners) EU SE ThermEnTrans Consortium (101236597) on phase-change based thermal management for Energy Transformative Technologies.
ENFHT Keynote Speaker
Dr. Behnaz (Beth) Rezaie, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Dr. Behnaz Rezaie is a globally recognized expert in sustainable energy systems, with a distinguished career spanning academia, industry, and applied research. With over a decade of experience in engineering education and more than 10 years in the automotive and manufacturing sectors, she bridges the gap between cutting-edge research and practical application. Her research focuses on improving the efficiency, sustainability, and resilience of district energy systems, with deep expertise in thermal energy storage, renewable integration, and the energy-water nexus. Dr. Rezaie has developed innovative models to optimize multiple thermal energy storages, evaluated alternative energy technologies under economic and environmental constraints, and pioneered methods for sustainable energy planning in smart cities. Her contributions include advanced simulations for server room cooling using AI, lifecycle assessments of additive manufacturing, and guidelines for geothermal energy systems. Dr. Rezaie is the author of over 50 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications, including a landmark review on district energy systems recognized as a “Highly Cited Paper” by Applied Energy. She has secured over $1.5 million in research funding as PI or Co-PI from agencies such as DOE and industrial partners, and has led multi-disciplinary projects in energy optimization, sustainability assessment, and water conservation. In industry, Dr. Rezaie has held senior engineering and managerial roles, including the launch of over 140 automotive programs and the development and accreditation of six quality assurance laboratories for automakers such as Toyota, Chrysler, Mazda, and KIA. She is a registered Professional Engineer in Ontario, Canada.