Li receives prestigious ASHRAE fellowship

MechSE PhD candidate Jun Li was recently given a Grant-in-Aid award from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). These awards are competitive grants intended to encourage bright graduate students to become ASHRAE members and continue to contribute to sustainability throughout their careers. Li is one of a few students from around the country to receive such a grant for his work improving condensers and systems.

A student of Professor Pega Hrnjak, Li currently works in the Air-Conditioning Refrigeration Center (ACRC).  His current research project, “Separation and Extraction Headers to Improve Condensers and Systems,” focuses on developing more efficient microchannel condensers that separate liquid from vapor in electric vehicle thermal management systems. Li’s design of the microchannels does not incur any additional manufacturing cost, and experimental results show that it increases mobile air-conditioners’ coefficient of performance by 6.6 percent.

“Being one of the recipients of this prominent award is a huge honor for me,” Li said. “It provides me with support for research and living, and I am sincerely appreciative for the aid from industry to academia.”

The award celebrates continual contributions to society and ASHRAE itself. Li has served as president of Illinois’ ASHRAE student branch where he organized field trips with industry partners, planned a MechSE seminar with ASHRAE’s president, and presented at Illinois’ Engineering Open House about ASHRAE.

“Besides the research, the motive to serve the university community drove me to work for the ASHRAE UIUC student branch,” said Li. “I will continue to work in this way to serve the community I am in.”