Adrian Bejan – professor of thermodynamics – was awarded the 2018 Benjamin Franklin Medal for „his pioneering interdisciplinary contributions in thermodynamics…and constructal theory, which predicts natural design and its evolution in engineering, scientific, and social systems.”
He received the 2019 Humboldt Research Award for “his pioneering contributions to modern Thermodynamics and Constructal Law, the law of physics that predicts natural design and its evolution in biology, geophysics, climate change, technology, social organization, evolutionary design and development, wealth and sustainability.”
Adrian Bejan was also honored with the Turkish Academy of Science Prize (2019) and Knight of the French Order of Academic Palms (2020).
He earned all his degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: B.S. (1971, Honors Course), M.S. (1972, Honors Course) and Ph.D. (1975). He was Fellow of the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, University of California Berkeley (1976-1978). Since 1989 he is the J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor at Duke University.
Adrian Bejan’s research is in applied physics and engineering science: thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, design and evolution everywhere in nature, bio and non-bio.
He is the author of more than 30 books and 650 peer-refereed journal articles. In February 2020 on Google Scholar he had h = 97 and total citations 72,000. According to the 2019 ‘citations impact’ rankings, he is the 9th among all Engineering authors worldwide, all disciplines, and is ranked among the top 0.01% of all world scientists: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000384
His impact on science is highlighted by his original methods of theory, modeling, analysis and design that today are associated with his name: entropy generation minimization, scale analysis, intersection of asymptotes, heatlines, temperature-heat (T-Q) diagram, constructal law, and evolutionary design as physics.
Adrian Bejan’s books are used worldwide in multiple editions, for example:
Freedom and Evolution, Springer Nature, 2020.
The Physics of Life, St. Martin’s Press, 2016, six translations.
Design in Nature, Doubleday 2012, and two translations.
Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics, 4th Ed, Wiley 2016.
Convection Heat Transfer, 4th Ed, Wiley 2013.
Convection in Porous Media, 5th Ed, Springer 2017.
Entropy Generation Minimization, CRC Press 1996.
Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature, Cambridge U. P. 2000.
He was awarded 18 honorary doctorates from universities in 11 countries, for example, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), University of Rome I “La Sapienza”, National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) Lyon, and University of Pretoria.
He is a member of the Academy of Europe, Mexican Academy of Sciences, Romanian Academy, and Academy of Sciences of Moldova.
