Awards at the 11th International Symposium

In connection with the  banquet at the 11th International Conference of Fire Safety Science in Christchurch the awardees of the IAFSS and FORUM awards were announced. The awardees are listed below and more information of the different awards can be found on the IAFSS awards page.

 

dinner_venue_11th
The venue of the symposium banquet was the Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch.

 

Emmons Award

  • Professor Michael Delichatsios with a talk entitled “Enclosure and Façade Fires: Physics and Applications”

Kunio Kawagoe Gold Medal

  • Professor Ian Thomas

Philip Thomas Medal of Excellence

  • Dr. Hong-Zeng (Bert) Yu, FM Global, USA, for his paper titled “Physical Scaling of Water Mist Suppression of Pool Fires in Enclosures” (Presented at the 10th Symposium)

Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research”

  • (Europe and Africa) Dr. Thomas Gernay, for the thesis titled “A multiaxial constitutive model for concrete in the fire situation including transient creep and cooling down phases,” Université de Liège, Belgium (2012)
  • (Americas) Dr. Kristopher James Overholt, for the thesis titled “Forward and Inverse Modeling of Fire Physics Towards Fire Scene Reconstructions,” The University of Texas at Austin, USA (2013)
  • (Asia and Oceania) Dr. Chao Zhang for the thesis titled “Reliability of Steel Columns Protected by Intumescent Coatings Subjected to Natural Fires,” Tongji University, China (2012)

Honorable Mentions:

  • Dr. John Gales, for the thesis titled “Unbonded Post Tensioned Concrete Structures in Fire,” University of Edinburgh, UK (2013)
  • Dr. Mélanie Rochoux for the thesis titled “Towards a more comprehensive monitoring of wildfire spread Contributions of model evaluation and data assimilation strategies (Vers une meilleure prévision de la propagation d’incendies de forêt: Evaluation de modèles et Assimilation de données),” CNRS et École Centrale Paris, France (2014)
  • Dr. Steven Verstockt for the thesis “Multi-modal Video Analysis for Early Fire Detection (Analyse van multimodale video voor vroegtijdige branddetectie),” Universiteit Gent, Belgium (2012)

IAFSS Best Poster Award

  • Sung Chan Kim, Jung Yong Kim and Dong Myeong Ha for “An Experimental and Numerical Study of the Effect of Flow Angle on the Probe Constant of Bi-Directional Velocity Probe for Fire Testing” (Kyungil University and Semyung University, Korea).
  • Sullivan Lechêne, Romain Morlon, Elizabeth Blanchard, Caroline Rebuffat, Gilles Parent, Zoubir Acem, Anthony Collin and Pascal Boulet for “On real radiative shielding effect when applying water mist in case of fire.” (CSTB and Université de Lorraine, France).

Best Student Poster Award

  • Xinyan Huang and Guillermo Rein for “Computational Modelling of Smouldering Peat Fires: Predicting the Role of Moisture and Inert Contents” (Imperial College, London)
  • Cristian Maluk, Luke Bisby and Jose Luis Torero for “H-TRIS: Quantified, reproducible and rational thermal exposures for fire testing”

Best Fire Science Image Award

  • Egle Rackauskaite, Xinyan Huang and Guillermo Rein (Imperial College, London, UK) for the image entitled “Fire Watch Constellation.”
  • James White, Eric Link, Taylor Myers, Andre Marshall and Peter Sunderland (University of Maryland, College Park, USA) for the image entitled “Oxidizer Dilution Quenching of a Turbulent, Methane Line Flame.”

Dougal Drysdale Award for Extraordinary Service to the IAFSS

  • Dr. Amanda Robbins: “In recognition of her development of a new federated search tool, the IAFSS Fire ReSearch Engine”
  • Dr. Ron Alpert: “In recognition of his work leading the English Mentoring Program.”
  • Dr. Craig Beyler: “In recognition of his long service to the IAFSS Committee, especially for initiating open access to Association archives, expanding the IAFSS membership, leading the 2014 Nominating Committee, and for mentoring members of the IAFSS Committee.”

The IAFSS would also like to express their appreciation to Committee Members who are now leaving the committee after years of helpful service:

  • Dr. Craig Beyler
  • Dieter Brein
  • Prof. Nicholas A. Dembsey
  • Prof. Yuji Hasemi
  • Carole Franks

 

Awards sponsored by the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors:

The Sheldon Tieszen Student Award
Sponsored by: the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors

Recipients:

  1. Franz Evegren (SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden), for “Fire Testing of External Combustible Ship Surfaces,” in the area of Test Development, Diagnostics and Large Scale Experiments.
  2. Frida Vermina Lundström (DBI – Danish Institute of Fire and Security Technology), for “The Effect of Raised Walkway Design on Evacuation Behaviour in Rail Tunnels,” in the area of Human Factors and Risk Assessment.
  3. Patrick Summers (Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA), for “Residual Constitutive Behavior of Aluminum Alloys after Fire Exposure,” in the area of Fire Chemistry and Fire Toxicity.
  4. Mélanie C. Rochoux (CERFACS, France), “Towards Predictive Simulation of Wildfire Spread at Regional Scale Using Ensemble-Based Data Assimilation to Correct the Fire Front Position,” in the area of Fire Physics and Fire Modeling.

 

The FORUM Student Travel Award
Sponsored by: the recipients of the 2012 Sjölin Award and the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors

Recipients:

Nicholas L. Brogaard and Martin X. Sørensen, for “A New Experimental Rig for Oil Burning on Water – Results for Crude and Pure Oils,” in the area of Test Development, Diagnostics and Large Scale Experiments.

 

The Sjölin Awards

Sponsored by: the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors

Recipients:

2012 FDS Development Team – K. McGrattan, H. Baum, G. Forney, R. McDermott, R. Rehm (NIST), J. Floyd (Hughes Associates Inc.), S. Hostikka, T. Korhonen (VTT), W. Mell (U.S. Forest Service).

2013 John deRis (FM Global).

2014 John Hall (NFPA).

 

The Mid-Career Researcher Award

Sponsored by: the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors

Recipient:

2014 Patrick van Hees (Lund University).

 

View Photos from the symposium banquet and awards ceremony: