|
Professor of Mechanical Engineering;
Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Biography
Vijay Modi is Professor and Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering
at Columbia University. He is also affiliated with the Columbia Earth Institute
through the Earth Engineering Center. Modi is currently involved with the
Earth Institute's projects in energy, rural infrastructure and development.
He is also working with Prof. Klaus Lackner in the Center for Carbon Manangement.After
obtaining his B. Tech. in mechanical engineering at Indian Institute of
Technology in Bombay, Modi attended Cornell University where he completed
his Ph.D. in 1984. He joined Columbia in 1986 after two years as
a post-doctoral research associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
where he worked on gas turbines. His energy-related investigations
have examined thermal power generation, cooling towers, gas turbines, cogeneration
for urban areas, solar energy resource assessment, MEMS based sensing and
design of environmental systems for the energy and paper industries.
His early research at Columbia was on the optimum design of flow systems
and the fluid mechanics of electrochemical systems.Modi's current research
projects include energy and transport strategies for meeting the United
Nations’ Millennium Development Goals; infrastructure priorities for economic
and social development; the use of spatial data in energy technology choices;
CO2 sequestration; and energy technologies for decentralized applications.Professor
Modi won the inaugural Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award in 1996 and
also the Greater Teacher Award in 1997 from the Society of Columbia Graduates.
He has authored or co-authored more than forty journal publications. Prof.
Modi currently serves as the Energy Policy Advisor to the Millennium Project
and is one of the lead investigators directing the Millennium Villages
Project of the Earth Institute. |
