Dr. Avram Bar-Cohen
Dr. Avram Bar-Cohen is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Laboratory for the Thermal Management of Electronics in the Department’s Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer Division. He also serves as the Acting Director of the Center for the Development of Technological Leadership of the University of Minnesota and holds the Renier Chair in Technological Leadership. His interests include thermal design, ebullient heat transfer, and thermal phenomena in electronic systems, as well as technology forecasting and management of technology. He served as General Manager and Executive Consultant for packaging and physical modeling at Control Data Corporation, 1984-1989, held a succession of academic appointments, from Lecturer to Professor, in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev (Israel), 1973-1988, and has been on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1977-1978, and the Naval Postgraduate School, 1982.
Bar-Cohen received a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971 and began his professional career at the Raytheon Company Missile Systems Division in Massachusetts. For nearly 30 years he has been involved in the design, analysis, and optimization of thermal systems, with emphasis on the thermal packaging of electronic equipment. He has lectured widely, published extensively in the archival heat transfer and packaging literature, and taught many Short Courses on this subject at universities and major conferences in the US and abroad. In 1993 he was invited by the UN to lecture and consult to the electronics industry in India.
In 1988 Bar-Cohen was the founding chairman of the ASME/IEEE Intersociety Conference on Thermal Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITHERM) and chaired the 2nd ITHERM Conference in 1990. He served as the General Chairman for the first InterPack (International Intersociety Packaging Conference) in 1995; was Global Trade Co-Chair of InterPack’97; chaired the International Advisory Committee for the 1997 Electronics Packaging Technology Conference in Singapore, and was chair of the International Conference on Heat Exchangers for Sustainable Development, June 1998, in Lisbon, Portugal. He has also participated in organizing numerous technical sessions at ASME’s NHTC and IMECE (WAM) Conferences, as well as at IEEE, IEPS, SPIE, ITHERM, Eurotherm, ICHMT, and other international Conferences and Workshops in Europe and Asia.
Avram Bar-Cohen is co-author (with A. D. Kraus) of “Design and Analysis of Heat Sinks” (1995) and “Thermal Analysis and Control of Electronic Equipment” (1983) and has co-edited eight books in this field, including the ASME Press Series Advances in Thermal Modeling of Electronic Components and Systems and the John Wiley & Sons Series in Thermal Management of Microelectronic and Electronic Systems. He has authored and co-authored some 65 Journal papers, 90 Refereed Proceedings papers, and 30 Chapters in books, and has delivered 25 Keynote, Plenary, and Invited lectures at major technical Conferences and Institutions.
Bar-Cohen is a Fellow of ASME and of IEEE. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE/EPS Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies. He is a former chairman (19811985) of the ASME K- 16 Committee for Heat Transfer in Electronic Equipment, chaired the ASME Research Committee on Packaging and Physical Design of Electronic Equipment (19881990), and was the vice-chairman of the IEEE/CHMT TC-9 Committee on Thermal Control (1990-1993). He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the ASME Board on Research, served on the ASME Board on Professional Development 1989-1995, and sits on the IEEE/CPMT Board of Governors. Avram is the ASME Vice-President-Elect for Research and will assume this position in June of 1998.
In 1994 Avrarn Bar-Cohen was awarded the ASME Edwin F. Church Medal “in recognition of contributions to engineering education, continuing education and professional development on both the national and international levels,” and was recognized by the ASME Electronic and Electrical Packaging Division for “outstanding contributions to application of Heat Transfer Science to Electronics Packaging.” In 1997 Avram Bar-Cohen was awarded the THERMI Significant Contributor Award from the IEEE/Semi-Therm. Conference “for his many contributions to the thermal management of semiconductors,” and in 1992 he received ASME’s Dedicated Service Award for his work in Professional Development. From 1994 to 1997 he served as an ASME Distinguished Lecturer, and spoke at more than a dozen ASME Sections/Regions throughout the US.