Professor Van P. Carey has been named the 2004 James Harry Potter Gold Medalist (ASME).

The James Harry Potter Gold Medal was established in 1980 in recognition of eminent achievement or distinguished service in the application of the science of thermodynamics in mechanical engineering.

The citation reads:

For sustained research and teaching in thermodynamics, in particular the innovative application of analysis tools derived from statistical thermodynamics or the thermodynamics of nonequilibrium systems, and the authorship of widely used monographs and textbooks on multiphase systems and statistical thermodynamics.

Dr. Carey joined the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in 1982 and is currently a professor in the mechanical engineering department. In his teaching at Berkeley, Carey has worked to incorporate modern treatments of statistical and nonequilibrium thermodynamic concepts into traditional thermodynamics and heat transfer courses. As part of this effort, he has developed a new undergraduate course, Thermodynamics and Biothermodynamics (ME105B), which explores the application of equilibrium and nonequilibrium thermodynamic principles to both mechanical engineering systems and energy conversion in biological systems.

Carey is widely recognized for his research on nucleation and near-interface micro- and nanoscale thermophysics in liquid-vapor systems. His research interests also include non-equilibrium thermodynamics of phase change phenomena, statistical thermodynamics, molecular dynamic simulation of interfacial region thermophysics, biothermodynamics, thermal control of electronics and micromechanical system components, and use of exergy analysis to optimize the design of data center thermal management systems.

Carey is the author/co-author of over 125 technical publications and holds three patents. Two of his publications, Liquid-Vapor Phase Change Phenomena (Taylor and Francis, 1992) and Statistical Thermodynamics and Microscale Thermophysics (Cambridge University Press, 1999), are advanced textbooks that have become widely used in graduate level engineering courses. He is currently an editor for the journal Microscale Thermophysical Engineering and the International Journal of Transport Phenomena.

An ASME Fellow, Carey was a member of the ASME Heat Transfer Division (HTD) K-6 Committee on Heat Transfer in Energy Systems (1984-99) and served as chair of K-6 from 1992 to 1995. Since 1996, he has been a member of the ASME K-8 Committee on Theory and Fundamental Research, and he has been a member of the ASME K-21 Committee on Education since 1999. He also has served on the HTD K-3 Committee on Honors (1991-93), the Max Jakob Award Committee (1994-96) and the K-5 Coordinating Committee (2002-04). Carey recently served as associate editor for the Journal of Heat Transfer (2000-02). He also served as a member of the Organizing Committee for the 6th ASME-Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers Thermal Engineering Joint Conference held in Hawaii (2003) and as technical program chair for the 2003 Summer Heat Transfer Conference in Las Vegas. He received a 1999 Best Paper Award from the HTD for a paper he co-authored.

Carey is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Physical Society, the American Society for Engineering Education and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

His honors include the Society of Automotive Engineers' Teetor Award (1984), the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award (1985), the Pi Tau Sigma Award for Excellence in Teaching at the University of California, Berkeley (1985) and the 2001 Clifford C. Furnas Memorial Award from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

Carey received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.) in 1974. He earned his master's and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering at SUNY at Buffalo in 1976 and 1981, respectively.

The award will be presented at the forthcoming ASME Congress in Anaheim in November 2004.