Two NREL Researchers Selected as Fellows of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Two researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have been named fellows of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
The New York-based organization bestowed the honor this fall to Zhiwen Ma and Bidzina Kekelia. Both men are senior engineers, and each holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering.
ASME annually inaugurates a class of fellows among its 72,000 members for their “exceptional engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession and to ASME.” Fewer than 5% of its members are named fellows.
“It is a great honor to serve the engineering community with ASME recognition on clean-energy technologies,” said Ma, who joined NREL 16 years ago.
Ma’s career at NREL has included work in thermal energy storage, hydrogen production and storage, and concentrating solar thermal power. His work in using sand as a medium for thermal energy storage in particular is proving to be groundbreaking, with the technology moving from a laboratory scale to commercial adoption.
Kekelia, who will mark his 10th anniversary at NREL in February, has focused his research efforts on vehicle thermal management, exploring novel cooling methods for power electronics, and traction drives for ground electric vehicles and electrified aviation. He previously spent six years in his home country of Georgia helping to rehabilitate Georgia’s energy sector after the collapse of the Soviet Union, war with Russia, and a civil war.
“I consider Bidzina a great colleague and collaborator, an outstanding technical contributor and innovator, and an important thought leader in our community,” Sreekant Narumanchi, an ASME fellow and a group manager at NREL, wrote in support of Kekelia’s nomination. He added: “One of Bidzina’s most impressive professional qualities is the depth and breadth of his technical expertise.”
Gilbert Moreno, a senior research engineer who joined NREL more than 15 years ago, was added to the ranks of ASME fellows at NREL at the end of 2023.
Moreno, Kekelia, and Ma join Robert Thresher, Paul Veers, Sreekant Narumanchi, and Michael Martin as NREL scientists who as current NREL staff members have received this honor.