Michael Martin Receives American Society of Mechanical Engineers Fellow Designation
Michael Martin, staff scientist in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) Computational Science Center, was recently named an American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) fellow. This recognition is for his contributions as a member of the ASME.
Martin's career has spanned science, education, and science policy. At NREL, he leads the High-Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) program and co-leads the Energy and Atmospheric Systems Catalyzer within the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA). He also managed the resource allocations process for the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) High-Performance Computing for three cycles.
In addition to mentoring multiple graduate student interns, Martin serves as NREL's representative for DOE's Computational Science Graduate Fellowship program and the EERE High-Performance Computing Fellowship program. He has worked to expand NREL's involvement in the National Science Foundation Mathematical Sciences Graduate Internship program.
His scientific contributions include 100 journal publications, conference papers, conference presentations, and book chapters. Martin was selected for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's New Voices program in 2021, where he contributed to interdisciplinary work responding to climate change and worked with the academies' Committee on Human Rights. He has served on the ASME Energy Public Policy Task Force since 2017.
His research is heavily interdisciplinary, with collaborations across NREL in topics ranging from energy-efficient computing to green steelmaking.
"Martin is an excellent collaborator," said Sreekant Narumanchi, NREL's group manager for Mechanical Engineering who nominated Martin. "Martin shows great initiative and resolve in generating results. His leadership in completing projects showcases his terrific skills and follow-through. I'm pleased to see him get elevated to ASME fellow—it's a nice recognition of his accomplishments in multiple aspects."
Martin's scientific focus has been on fluid dynamics and the heat transfer of new technologies in extreme environments. He researched micro- and nano-systems as a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan and the Naval Research Laboratory, respectively. He worked on extremes of high pressure and temperature (Venus), low pressure (Mars), and high radiation (Jupiter) for space exploration applications as a faculty member at Louisiana State University and faculty fellow at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He also won six awards for outstanding teaching at LSU. He worked in science policy—including two years at the DOE Office of Science and one year as the ASME Congressional Science and Engineering fellow in the office of Senator Jack Reed—before coming to NREL in 2017.
Martin sees great value in the recognition by ASME.
"I do a lot of mentoring and advising and wind up writing several letters of recommendation every year for former NREL summer students," he said. "I know it's always a boost when the person writing the letter is considered to be a successful scientist. It was great the first time I got to write 'ASME Fellow' on my signature line while advocating for a former intern to land a new position! Also, I'm working on a few new areas of research after shifting away from program management responsibilities, so I'm looking forward to working more with the mechanical engineering community."
Read more about Martin's research interests in his bio. And learn more about advanced computing at NREL.