José L. Lage

Résumé

J. L. Lage, SMU Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in November 1962. The son of a Montessori teacher and enthusiast, Lage went through Montessori schools during his primary and part of his elementary schooling.

He received a B.Sc. degree with Honors in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering and a M.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1984 and 1986, respectively.

Before obtaining his B.Sc. degree he worked as an Engineer Trainee of FURNAS-RJ, a major utility company in Brazil, in the Nuclear Fuel Processing and Safety Department. In 1986 he joined the Military Institute of Engineering in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he worked for one year as Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

 He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering, with emphasis in thermal sciences, in 1991 from Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, working under the advice of the internationally known Professor Adrian Bejan. In the same year he was offered and accepted an Assistant Professor, tenure-track position in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

After only two years working at SMU, the SMU Board of Trustees appointed him to the distinguished J. Lindsey Embrey Trustee Professorship in Mechanical Engineering. In 1996 he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. In 2001 he was elevate to the rank of full Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Also in 2001 he was appointed the Associate Chair of Mechanical Engineering, a position he held until 2003, responsible for the undergraduate and graduate academic activities of the department (course scheduling, teaching assignment, student advising, new programs, assessment and evaluation, student recruiting, etc.) and the Director of International Programs for the SMU School of Engineering, responsible for enhancing existing international programs and creating new programs for students and faculty. Specific accomplishments as Associate Chair include: ABET 2000 six-years accreditation of undergraduate program; SMU Board of Trustees approval for new Master's program in Packaging of Electronics and Optical Devices; re-vamping of existing Master's program in Manufacturing Systems Management; undergraduate student retention initiative; unified course scheduling; cross-listing of courses with Environmental and Civil Engineering Department; update ME undergrad and grad catalogue sections, and new undergraduate program requirements. In the international front, among other feats Lage has: developed agreements with Latin American countries (e.g., Panama, Guatemala, Mexico); proposed new international consortium between Brazilian and American universities, funded through a four-years grant from the US Department of Education and the Brazilian Ministry of Education; initiated student/faculty exchange programs with Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand; created a new SMU-In-Koenigswinter Summer Germany Program for engineering students in co-operation with the School of Engineering at Texas A&M.

Prof. Lage teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the thermo-fluid sciences area and in bio-engineering, being also responsible for the undergraduate thermo-fluid sciences laboratories at SMU. Among other accomplishment, he has developed two new successful courses at SMU, namely Heat Transfer in Biomedical Sciences and Transport Phenomena in Porous Media, and short courses for engineers and scientists on Mass, Heat, and Momentum Transfer in Porous Media: Fundamentals and Applications and on Diffusion in Microscale and Porous Media. Moreover, he was instrumental in the re-organization of the thermal-fluids laboratory, with the purchase of new equipment, development of new curricula, and training of teaching assistants and laboratory technicians.

He is currently the Director of the Laboratory for Porous Materials Applications, a research laboratory developed by him at SMU. His work, supported by the Olin Corp., Texas Instruments, Odegos Technologies, Raytheon, MCD, FSI International, NIST, Southwestern Medical Center, and NSF, has led to the graduation of several Ph.D. students. Prof. Lage's research interests are fundamental with a strong application component. Some recent projects include:

(1) Design of heat-sinks with microporous foam metal for cooling electronic

(2) Modeling and simulation of alveolar respiration

(3) Modeling turbulence in porous media

(4) Application of fractional calculus to heat transfer & fluid mechanics

An accomplished scholar, Dr. Lage has over seventy-five research articles published or accepted for publication in the most prestigious journals in his field, seven book chapters, and over fifty-five peer-reviewed technical papers presented in national and international conferences. He is a reviewer for several technical journals, publishing companies, and national and international research sponsor agencies. Prof. Lage has given more than twenty invited seminars in the US and abroad. His first book: Heat Transfer in Microscale and Porous Media, is scheduled to be published in 2005/2006.

In testimony to the practicality of his research work, and as a result of a research program developed by him and supported by Texas Instruments, and later on by Raytheon Systems Company, on forced convection cooling of electronics, Professor Lage was awarded the patent: “Cold Plate Design for Thermal Management of Phased-Array Radar Systems,” U.S. Patent 5,960,861, Oct 1999.

Lage was on a sabbatical leave from 1998 to 1999, as an invited Visiting Scholar of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, doing research and helping implement his biomedical engineering course to the ETH engineering curriculum. He was co-hosted by the Institute of Process Engineering and by the Institute of Energy Technology.

In 2001, evidencing his international reputation, Prof. Lage was selected Honorary Professor of the University "Dunarea de Jos" of Galati, Romania "For his remarkable contribution to the scientific research in the fields of heat transfer, thermal convection in porous medium, thermodynamics, thermal machines and fluid mechanics."

Recently, has was invited to participate as a keynote lecturer in the 2002 First International Conference of Porous Media Applications, held in Tunisia, in the 2002 Brazilian Congress of Engineering Education, in Brazil, in the 2003 NATO Advanced Study Institute, in Romania, in the 2004 NASA Glenn Workshop on Convection in Porous Media, and in the 11th Brazilian Congress of Thermal Science and Engineering.

In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME International), an honor bestowed to less than five-percent of the total ASME member pool. In 2003 he was elected Honorary Member of Pi Tau Sigma, the International Mechanical Engineering Honor Society, and in 2004 selected as recipient of the prestigious Eagle Award by the ASME North Texas Section.

He has received several other awards, including the 2003-04 and the 2004-05 Outstanding Undergraduate Faculty Award in Mechanical Engineering, selected by the SMU students, the 2000-01 Engineer of the Year Award, by the ASME, North Texas Section, for "Outstanding Achievements in Mechanical Engineering," the 1998 SAE Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award, by the SAE - The Engineering Society for Advancing Mobility by Land, Sea, Air and Space, for "Significant Contributions to Teaching, Research and Student Development," and the 1995-96 Young Engineer of the Year Award, by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, North Texas Section, for "Outstanding Achievements in Mechanical Engineering." He has also been the recipient of fellowships from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and from the Leonard Euler Center - ERCOFTAC.

He has been the only faculty of the SMU School of Engineering chosen twice by the students as the recipient of the prestigious H.O.P.E.(Honoring Our Professors Excellence) Award, in 2000-01 and 2002-03, bestowed by the SMU Department of Residence Life and Student Housing, Southern Methodist University.

In 1995 he was chosen as the recipient of the 1994-95 Golden Mustang Award, The Golden Mustang Endowment, by Southern Methodist University, for "Sustained High Achievement as both a Teacher and Scholar". In the same year he received the 1994-95 ASEE Outstanding Teaching Award, by the American Society for Engineering Education, Gulf Southwest Section. In 1994 he was bestowed with the 1994 Outstanding Research Award, by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, SMU Chapter. He has also received the 1993-94 Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award in Mechanical Engineering, Southern Methodist University, and the 1993-94 Outstanding Undergraduate Faculty Award in Mechanical Engineering, Southern Methodist University.

He is a current member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME). Lage served ASME North Texas Section as the 94-95 College Relations Officer, 95-96 Treasurer, 96-97 Secretary, 97-98 Vice-Chair, 1999-2000 Chair and as the 2000-2001 Past-Chair, being now a member of the Industry Advisory Board.

 Lage served as the Faculty Advisor for the Pi Tau Sigma - International Honorary Mechanical Engineering Society - at SMU from 1994 until 2004. He has served also as the SMU Faculty Advisor for the ASME Student Section from 1994 to 1997, and during 2001-2002. He is currently the faculty advisor of the SMU Alpha-Chi-Omega sorority.

He was appointed and served as the Secretary of the Faculty Senate of Southern Methodist University for the academic year 1999-2000, and again for the Spring 2001 term (by request), having served as a Senator representing the School of Engineering from 1997 to 2000 and as an elected at-large University senator from 2000 to 2003.

Professor Lage is also very proud of his volunteering activities, which includes being a driver for the Meals-on-Wheels in South Dallas, working as a Mathematics volunteer instructor for first grade students and as a volunteer faculty advisor for Science Projects in the Plano Independent School District. He has also coached under-12 soccer as a volunteer for the YMCA-Plano, and for the North Texas Soccer Association. He has also been a field-trip volunteer designated driver for Good Shepherd Montessori School, in McKinney, and a volunteer member of the Board of Directors for the Windy Hill Farms Homeowners Association.

last update: Aug. 2005

José L. Lage (JLL@engr.smu.edu) (214) 768-2361