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Clark Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor Damena Agonafer. |
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Clark Faculty Fellow Damena Agonafer, an associate professor in the University of Maryland’s (UMD) Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
The recognition is among the highest offered by ASME and is considered one of the top honors in the mechanical engineering field as a whole. Only around 4% of ASME’s approximately 72,000 members worldwide are elevated to the rank of Fellow.
A UMD faculty member since 2022, Agonafer conducts pioneering research that could help cool high-powered electronics, reduce the energy footprint of data centers, optimize HVAC systems, and improve the thermal management of batteries. He positions his research enterprise at the intersection of thermal fluid sciences, interfacial transport phenomena, and renewable energy.
By harnessing a number of cutting-edge methodologies, including the tuning and control of solid-liquid-vapr interactions at micro and nano-length scales, Agonafer aims to bring about major gains in efficiency while reining in environmental impacts. One of his most significant current endeavors centers on development of two-phase cooling systems that can dissipate heat at chip level, thus reducing the need for bulky, energy-consuming fans in data centers.
His timely, impactful research has earned him national-level recognition, including a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) award, announced in January 2025, and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, given in 2019. Other accolades include the Google Research Award, Sloan Research Fellowship Award, Cisco Research Award, an ASME Early Career Award, and an ASME K-16 Outstanding Early Faculty Career in Thermal Management Award.
F. Patrick McCluskey, interim chair of the UMD mechanical engineering department, said the growing list of honors, including selection as ASME Fellow, testifies to Agonafer’s exceptional abilities as a researcher and educator.
“Dr. Agonafer’s work is rigorous, technologically innovative, and aligned with the goal of meeting societal grand challenges,” McCluskey said. “He is making a serious contribution to solving the sustainability problems posed by rapidly increasing energy demands.”
A Ph.D. alumnus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a former postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University’s Nanoheat Lab, Agonafer was an assistant professor at Washington University prior to joining the UMD faculty. He was among 85 early-career engineers in the U.S. selected to attend the 2021 National Academy of Engineering's 26th annual US Frontiers of Engineering symposium.
At UMD, he is an affiliate of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute as well as a mechanical engineering faculty member; he is also UMD site lead for the Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub, a Gen-4 Engineering Research Center focused on reducing environmental costs of refrigeration technology.
September 2, 2026
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