Chen named fellow of ASME

James Chen, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has been named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in recognition of his exceptional engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession and to ASME.

Chen is one of only 3,473 fellows out of 75,372 ASME members.

“By continuing to recognize our outstanding members and elevating them to the grade of fellow, we ensure ASME’s commitment to its vision to be the premier resource for the engineering community globally. The fellow grade is truly a distinction among ASME members,” says Thomas Costabile, executive director and CEO of ASME.

Francine Battaglia, professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, notes that since Chen joined the department in 2018, he has assumed leadership roles on faculty search committees and serves as the director of undergraduate studies of the aerospace engineering program.

“He is also leading a team on a project funded by LIFT to create a predictive framework of additive manufacturing for customized ceramics matrix composites,” Battaglia says. “These are just a few examples that exemplify how James has earned the recognition and distinction of ASME fellow.”

Chen’s research interests include fundamental theories and numerical simulation for different physical problems across multiple spatial and temporal scales, including turbulence, triboelectricity, atomistic simulation, continuum mechanics, applied mathematics and multiscale simulation. His current focus is on scalable solver development for multiphase flows in hybrid rocket applications and hypersonic ceramics-matrix composite design with material informatics.

He serves as director of the Multiscale Computational Physics Lab, and is one of the co-PIs for the PSAAP-III Center for Hybrid Rocket Exascale Simulation Technology (CHREST) at UB. His research has been funded primarily by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA, Office of Naval Research, LIFT Technology and Department of Energy.

His other honors and awards include associate fellow of the AIAA (2021), a Rising Star award from the Electrostatics Society of America (2021) for his "significant contributions to the field of electrostatics," Outstanding Young Engineer Award, Wichita Council of Engineering Societies (2018), U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award (2017) and honorary fellow, Australian Institute of High Energetic Materials (2011), among others.

Prior to joining the UB faculty, Chen was an assistant professor and the endowed Steve Hsu Keystone Scholar at Kansas State University. He also worked as an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona college and as a visiting assistant professor at Indiana University-Purdue University.

He received a PhD in mechanical and aerospace engineering from The George Washington University.