Miljkovic recognized for research with societal impact

6/10/2025

Prof. Nenad Miljkovic was one of the 2025 recipients of the Dean's Award for Early Innovation, which recognizes exceptional individuals who are working at the early stages of the innovation life cycle to turn their research into products that benefit the world.

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MechSE Professor Nenad Miljkovic was honored this past semester with a Dean’s Award for Early Innovation (for Professor) from The Grainger College of Engineering.

Nenad MiljkovicThis award, now in its second year, recognizes exceptional individuals who are working at the early stages of the innovation life cycle to turn their research into products that benefit the world. Candidates are selected from the pool of faculty who made invention disclosures to the Office of Technology Management during the previous academic year.

The award was introduced in 2024 to recognize accomplishments of Grainger Engineering faculty who engage in translational research by submitting invention disclosures and/or patent applications. Invention disclosures and patents are key metrics of Grainger Engineering and they play a significant role in amplifying the impact of faculty research. 

Miljkovic’s research intersects the multidisciplinary fields of thermo-fluid sciences, interfacial phenomena, and renewable energy. He aims to bring about transformational efficiency enhancements in energy (power generation to oil and gas to renewables), water, agriculture, transportation and electronics cooling by fundamentally manipulating heat-fluid-surface interactions across multiple length and time scales.

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Miljkovic is the Founder Professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, with affiliate appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Materials Research Laboratory, Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, and the International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research. He is also the director of the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center (ACRC) at Illinois.  


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This story was published June 10, 2025.