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Fire Safety Science News #40 – November, 2016 by IAFSS on Scribd
Announcing the Recipients of the Inaugural IAFSS Proulx and Magnusson Early Career Awards
The International Association of Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) is presenting two new awards, the Proulx and Magnusson Early Career Awards, at the 12th Symposium in Lund, Sweden in June 2017. Each of the awards consists of a grant of US$4000, a plaque, and free registration to the Symposium. Each recipient will also deliver at the Symposium a review paper drawn from their body of work.
The Proulx and Magnusson Early Career Awards recognise meritorious achievement by members of the IAFSS who are early in their careers and have contributed a body of work that is of significance to any area of fire safety science. The two awards are distinguished by the period of time from completion of the candidates’ most recent educational degree.
Proulx Award
The recipient of the inaugural 2017 Proulx Award is Prof. Michael Gollner from University of Maryland for his major scientific contributions to the understanding of flame spread, wildland and wildland-urban interface fire spread, and fire whirls. Michael is a rising star of the fire science community, an innovative engineer with great vision of the important issues in fire safety.
For the Proulx Award, candidates must be within five years from completion of their most recent degree at the time of nomination. The award commemorates Dr. Guylene Proulx (1960-2009), an expert in human behaviour in fire at National Research Council Canada, and IAFSS Board member at the time she passed away.
Magnusson Award
The recipient of the inaugural 2017 Magnusson Award is Dr Anna Stec from University of Central Lancashire for her major and lasting contributions in the field of fire chemistry and fire toxicity which she has applied to many areas of fire safety from material properties and risks to egress from fires. She is an excellent experimentalist with a sound understanding of fire dynamics and fire science.
For the Magnusson Award, candidates must be within five to ten years from completion of their most recent degree at the time of nomination. The award commemorates Prof. Sven Erik Magnusson (1938-2014), pioneer of parametric fires and risk management at Lund University, Sweden, and a driving force in creating the first education curriculum for fire safety engineering.
The awards subcommittee was chaired by Dr Guillermo Rein, and supported by Dr Anne Steen-Hansen, Dr Steven Gwynne and Prof Ritsu Dobashi as co-chairs from each of the IAFSS world regions. The help of 13 independent experts who contributed to evaluate the nominations is greatly acknowledged.
Registration fees for the 12th IAFSS
Registration for the 12th IAFSS symposium will open in the beginning of February 2017. However, the registation fees are now official. Early bird prices (registration before April 19) are (exl. VAT): 6000 SEK (Swedish krona) for IAFSS members, 7200 SEK for non-members and 3500 SEK for students.
More information is available on the symposium webpage.
Dr. Craig Beyler to be awarded Kunio Kawagoe Gold Medal
The 2017 Kunio Kawagoe Gold Medal will be presented at the 12th IAFSS Symposium in Lund, Sweden to Dr. Craig Beyler. The Kunio Kawagoe Gold Medal is awarded by IAFSS as a prestigious recognition of life-long contributions to and career achievements in fire science and engineering.
Dr. Beyler has contributed to global progress of fire science and engineering in extensive ways. He provided dedicated leadership to the development of the IAFSS as its president for two terms from 2005 through 2011 and as Chairs/Members of Award and Program committees for the 4th -8th IAFSS Symposia. During his IAFSS presidency, he introduced the digital online library, where all the symposium proceedings are freely available to researchers, so that research papers published in the IAFSS proceedings can be globally identified and available to researchers and practitioners.
Dr. Beyler has contributed to promote the development of fire science and engineering by providing the means to publish and access fire research results worldwide. He is the founding editors for the Journal of Fire Protection Engineering and Fire Science Reviews. In addition, he is the associate editor for Fire Technology and an advisory board member of several fire safety science journals including Fire Technology, Journal of Fire Protection Engineering, and Fire Safety Journal.
As a researcher, Dr. Beyler created a paradigm shift in the area of combustion product generation in compartment fires by his hood experiments investigating the generation of combustion products and the introduction of the concept of the global equivalence, which are now widely recognized as basic knowledge on combustion product generation.
Dr. Beyler served as the Technical Director for Jensen Hughes, Inc. (formerly Hughes) for 24 years. As technical director, he was involved in fire protection design, research and development projects for the company. During this period, he contributed to the growth of the number of engineers of the company from less than 50 to over 600 engineers and mentored hundreds of interns, graduate students, and engineers.
12th IAFSS Invited Speakers Announced
The 12th IAFSS symposium will feature 5 invited speakers throughout the conference program, plus the Emmons invited plenary lectureship by Prof. Carlos Fernandez-Pello. The invited speakers will be:
Luke Bisby (University of Edinburgh, UK) “Structural Response of Cross-Laminated Timber Compression Elements Exposed to Fire”
Karen Boyce (University of Ulster, UK) “Safe Evacuation for All – Fact or Fantasy? Past Experiences, Current Understanding and Future Challenges”
Ritsu Dobashi (University of Tokyo, Japan) “Studies on accidental gas and dust explosions”
Longhua Hu (University of Science and Technology of China) “A review of pool fire behaviors in wind and challenges”
Birgit Östman (SP, Sweden) “Fire safety engineering in timber buildings”
12th IAFSS Symposium Papers to be Published in Fire Safety Journal – Author Instructions Now Released
For the 12th IAFSS Symposium, and this for the first time, the Proceedings will be published as a Special Issue of the Fire Safety Journal (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/fire-safety-journal).
Instructions are now available for authors to prepare and submit manuscripts for presentation at the 12th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science (the 12th IAFSS Symposium)
Details on the transfer of the manuscripts from the EasyChair website used by IAFSS to the Elsevier website used by Fire Safety Journal as well as details on the composition of the guest Editors team responsible for final publication decisions are still being worked out and will be clarified in the coming few weeks (Fall 2016).
Prof. Fernandez-Pello to deliver Emmons Invited Plenary Lectureship at the 12th IAFSS
The 2017 Howard Emmons Invited Plenary Lectureship at the 12th IAFSS Symposium in Lund, Sweden will be delivered by Professor Carlos Fernández-Pello of the University of California at Berkeley (USA). The Emmons Lectureship is a prestigious recognition of distinguished career achievement in fire science and engineering awarded by the IAFSS once every three years at its International Symposia on Fire Safety Science.
Professor Fernández-Pello’s research interests have been broad and recognized for their innovation and significance. His research interests include heat and mass transfer, materials flammability, microgravity fire effects, micro and meso-scale combustion, ignition and flame propagation, smoldering and transition to flaming combustion. He has published more than 200 refereed archival publications, co-authored a book on combustion processes and has been involved in teaching and research activities since the 1970s in institutions around the globe, mainly in the USA, Spain, France and Japan. His current research involves fuel bed ignition by embers and heated/burning particles, materials flammability and test method development for spacecraft applications, smoldering and transition to flaming, modeling of flame spread on practical solid combustibles. It is worth noting that Professor Fernández-Pello worked closely with Howard Emmons when he was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard in the 1970s. Among his many awards, Professor Fernández -Pello was awarded the Philip Thomas Medal of Excellence for the best paper at the 6th International Symposium of Fire Safety Science.
Nominate for the IAFSS Proulx and Magnusson Early Career Awards
The International Association of Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) is launching two new awards, the Proulx and Magnusson Early Career Awards. These two awards are to be presented for the first time at the 12th Symposium in Lund, Sweden in June 2017.
The Proulx and Magnusson Early Career Awards recognise meritorious achievement by members of the IAFSS who are early in their careers and have contributed a body of work that is of significance to any area of fire safety science. The two awards are distinguished by the period of time from completion of the candidates’ most recent educational degree (Ph.D., M.Sc.).
Eligibility to the Proulx Early Career Award
For the Proulx Award, candidates must be within five years from completion of their most recent degree at the time of nomination (i.e., Oct 15, 2016). The award commemorates Dr. Guylene Proulx (1960-2009), an expert in human behaviour in fire at National Research Council Canada, and IAFSS Board member at the time she passed away.
Eligibility to the Magnusson Early Career Award
For the Magnusson Award, candidates must be within five to ten years from completion of their most recent degree at the time of nomination (i.e., Oct 15, 2016). The award commemorates Prof. Sven Erik Magnusson (1938-2014), pioneer of parametric fires and risk management at Lund University, Sweden. He was one of the driving forces during the start-up of IAFSS educational committee by drafting the first education curriculum for fire safety engineering.
Privileges of the recipient
Each of the awards consists of a grant of US$4000, a plaque, and free registration for the Symposium.
Each recipient will deliver at the Symposium a review paper drawn from his/her body of work. Each recipient will be asked to prepare a paper, as per submission guidelines of the Symposium (an exceptional extension to the submission date will be granted for these papers). Papers will undergo peer review and if accepted will be presented during breakout sessions and included in the Symposium proceedings.
Selection Process
The awards will be administered together with all other IAFSS awards. The Awards Committee will nominate a Chair for Proulx and Magnusson Early Career Awards who will call upon three co‐Chairs (one representing each region). For each eligible candidate, the Chair and co‐Chairs will request at least one independent review by a subject matter expert. Chair and co‐chairs will rank submissions based on their own assessment and the views provided by the independent reviewers.
Normally, one Proulx award and one Magnusson award shall be made at each symposium; however, fewer awards will be made, if in the opinion of the committee, candidates of sufficient merit have not been proposed. The awards shall be presented at the IAFSS Symposium.
The four criteria used to select the recipient include:
- Pertinence: Are the subject matters of the body of work within the scope of the science and engineering of fire safety?
- Quality: Are the methodologies applied in the body of work sound and correct?
- Significance: Do the results of the body of work add to our knowledge? Were the results new, accurate, useful and important?
- Impact: Do the results of the body of work have a broad impact in the science and engineering of fire safety?
Important Dates
- September 15, 2016 Period for nominations opens.
- October 15, 2016 Period for nominations ends (at midnight, UK time).
- December 15, 2016 Recipients will be contacted
- February 15, 2017 Deadline for submission of the review paper.
Nomination process
Nominations must be made by an IAFSS member in good standing. Self-nominations will be considered too. During the period for nominations, the following documents should be submitted by email to the Chairman for Proulx and Magnusson Early Career Awards:
Dr Guillermo Rein, Imperial College London, UK, g.rein@imperial.ac.uk
- Cover letter stating why the candidate is worthy of the award. This letter must also show that the candidate is eligible for the award based on the period of time from most recent. Letter must not exceed 2 pages.
- Curriculum Vitae of the candidate (excluding publication list).
- List of publications of the candidate. The list should be comprised of accepted journal articles and accepted conference publications. Publications submitted or in preparation or draft should not be listed.
- Recommendation letters, no more than two pages in length each, from two experts of international standing in the field. No more than two letters from experts will be accepted.
Nominations sought for Emmons, Kawagoe and Thesis Lectureships and Awards
Nominations are now sought for several awards given by the IAFSS every 3 years at its tri-annual symposium. The Emmons Lectureship is given by the Symposium Programme Committee whilst the other four are given by the IAFSS Awards Committee. Nominations are now sought for the Emmons Lectureship (by July 1st, 2016), the Kunio Kawagoe Gold Medal (by September 1st, 2016) and the best thesis award (by December 15th, 2016). Please visit the Awards Page for more details on the awards, past recipients and instructions to submit nominations.
IAFSS Chair Prof. Patrick van Hees to give Keynote at Interflam 2016
The Interflam 2016 international organizing committee is pleased to announce the largest technical programme in the conference’s 36 year history.
The opening Keynote Paper of the 14th international conference will be given by Prof. Patrick van Hees of Lund University, Sweden who is the present Chairman of the IAFSS. Prof van Hees will be presenting his views on The Urgent Need for System Thinking in Fire Safety – The Only Way Forward for Testing, Engineering and Education.
Over the 3 days there will be 120 oral presentations divided into 3 parallel session which are arranged into 23 separate topic sessions. Nearly 70 posters papers will be on display over the entire conference with designated sessions in the programme and a variety of exhibition stands, The free student workshop on Sunday afternoon has already been well supported by registrations and there are still a few subsidized student places available.
FM Global will be making an Award for Best Paper/s at the conference with up to £1000 being offered.
Organising partners are BRE, NIST, NFPA, SFPE, SP and sponsors include FM Global, Fire Testing Technology, Efectis, Kingspan, Promat, Swissi, and Arup.
With more than 6 weeks to go to the event there are already there 275 registered participants from 25 countries.
For more information, please visit: http://www.intersciencecomms.co.uk/html/conferences/Interflam/If16/if16.htm
Dr Natalia Flores-Quiroz is a researcher with experience in fire safety engineering. She worked for five years as a fire safety engineer in the mining industry before joining academia. She holds a MSc in fire safety from Ghent University, and her PhD focused on Fire investigations in Informal Settlements. Currently she is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University, where her main research areas are reconstruction of incidents in low-income settlements (i.e., informal settlements, refugee camps) and wildland urban interface (WUI) fires.
Bronwyn Forrest is a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Waterloo, conducting multi-disciplinary research investigating human physiological response to fire exposure. Bronwyn graduated in 2017 with a BSc. Honours Kinesiology and in 2020 with a MASc. Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering (Heat Release Rate in Ventilation-Limited Furniture Fires) before merging her two degrees in her PhD research. As a senior graduate student in the Fire Research Group, Bronwyn spear-heads large-scale fire experiments, mentors junior graduate and undergraduate students, and has recently set-up a new ‘human exposure lab’ at the Fire Research Facility where she leads new research in that area. Since her induction into the world of fire science, Bronwyn has grown more and more passionate about the multi-faceted nature of emerging fire safety challenges. Through innovative research, she hopes to make meaningful contributions that help shape changes to fire safety over the course of her career.
Dr. (HDR) Eric Guillaume has worked in fire sciences since 1998. He formerly led the fire behaviour department of SNCF (French Railway), then changed company in 2005 to join LNE (The French National Laboratory for Testing and Metrology) as head of Fire safety studies department, and later as head of research for whole testing activities of LNE. Nowadays (since 2015), he works for Efectis France, first as Technical Director and more recently as General Manager of the company, leading one of the most important fire testing and fire safety engineering companies in Europe (With approx. 180 people and 28 M€ turnover)
Dr. Albert Simeoni is Professor and the Department Head of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He is the WPI site director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC), an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States. Dr. Simeoni has served IAFSS by being chair or co-chair of the Wildland Fire track (2014, 2020 and 2023), Co-chair of the Awards Committee for the Best Thesis Awards (2023), Associate-Editor of Fire Safety Journal (2010-2015), member of the Editorial Board of Fire Safety Journal (since 2016), and Contributing Editor of Fire Safety Science News (since 2011).
Brian J. Meacham, PhD, PE (CT&MA), EUR ING, CEng (UK), FIFireE, FSFPE, is the Managing Principal of Meacham Associates. He develops risk-informed performance-based solutions to complex building and infrastructure challenges, provides peer-review services, and undertakes building and fire regulatory system studies. He also conducts research in these areas as well as in sustainable and fire resilient built environments and fire safety technologies. Brian has authored more than 300 publications, given more than 300 presentations and has been awarded more than $4M in research funding. His prior positions include Associate Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Principal at Arup, Technical Director and Research Director at SFPE, and fire safety engineer in Europe and the USA. Brian is Chair of the ICC Performance Code Committee, Chair of the NFPA Technical Committee on Fire Risk Assessment Methods, Immediate Past Chair of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS), a Past President of the SFPE, and a past Chair of the Inter-jurisdictional Regulatory Collaboration Committee (IRCC). He is a licensed Professional Engineer in CT and MA, a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK), a registered European Engineer (EUR ING), a Fellow of the SFPE, and a Fulbright Global Scholar.
Kazunori Harada is a professor of architecture & architectural engineering at Kyoto University, Japan. He has a career in fire research for over 35 years. He has authored 14 IAFSS symposium papers. His expertise covers the fire resistance of construction materials, smoke movement and control, burning of combustibles in open and compartment, performance-based code & design of buildings and so on. He serves as a vice president of AOAFST, Asia-Oceania Association of Fire Science and Technology. He also serves as the Convenor of ISO/TC92/SC4 WG9, calculation methods for fire safety engineering (FSE), which develops calculation standards concerning FSE.
Enrico Ronchi is an Associate Professor at Lund University, Sweden. His research and education activities are focused on evacuation and human behaviour in case of building fires and wildfires. His work has been published in over 150 publications (including >90 peer-reviewed journal papers). He is currently Associate Editor for the journals Fire Technology and Safety Science and member of the editorial board of the Fire Safety Journal.
Jennifer Wen is currently Professor of Energy Resilience in the School of Mechanical Engineering Sciences, University of Surrey as Professor. Previously, Jennifer held positions at Computational Dynamics Limited (founding vendor of STAR-CCM), British Gas plc, South Bank University, Kingston University London, and University of Warwick. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Vice-Chair for Research for the International Association for Fire Safety Science. Jennifer is also a member and sub-task leader of the European Safety Panel on Hydrogen Safety (EHSP) established by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (now Clean Hydrogen Partnership) of the European Commission. She is an Associate Editor for the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute.
Dr Wojciech Węgrzyński is with ITB, that is the Polish Building Research Institute in Warsaw. He currently holds the position of the Deputy Head of Fire Research Department and the Professor of the Institute, and a Director at SFPE Europe. He is the Author of 40 peer-reviewed papers published in all of the primary FSE journals. His main area of interest is the fundamentals of compartment fire dynamics and standardized fire testing, and also: use of computational fluid dynamics in fire, wind and fire interaction and evaluation of the effects of the spread of smoke in buildings. His research is focused on the impact of the architectural context of the building on the smoke control performance, as well as finding solutions to make the smoke exhaust systems cheaper and more efficient. Member of the Sub-committee for Research of the IAFSS. 2018 NFPA Harry C. Bigglestone Award Recipient; 2019 Jack Watts Award Recipient; 2020 SFPE 5 Under 35 Award Recipient. Member of Editorial Board of ‘Fire Technology. Hosts a fire podcast at 
Dr. Shuna Ni is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her Ph.D. degree at Texas A&M University in 2018 and her Master’s degree at Tongji University in 2013. Dr. Ni’s research focuses on fire forensics, structural fire engineering, WUI fire resilience, fire safety of tall mass-timber buildings and fire-related multiple hazards. Her research has been funded by National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, Fire Protection Research Foundation, University Transportation Centers under the Department of Transportation, Grand Challenges Grants Program at the University of Maryland and industrial partners.
Brian Lattimer, Ph.D. is a Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech where he performs experimental and computational research on fire safety and disaster resilience. He has nearly 30 years of experience in fire related research. His research areas include material behavior in fires, fire dynamics, suppression agents, heat transfer from fires to surfaces, structural response during fire, and firefighting technology.
Yu Wang is a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He got joint Ph.D. from USTC and the City University of Hong Kong in 2016 and had working experience at the University of Edinburgh, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and National University of Singapore before returning to China in 2020. His primary research areas are high-rise building fire and large outdoor fire. Yu has published over 50 SCI journal papers, and is currently an Associate Editor in Fire Technology and Editorial Board Member in Fire Safety Journal. He initiated the first English fire course at USTC, Introduction of Fire Dynamics, reported by China News and People’s Daily Online (over 260,000 audiences). In recent years, he has received SFPE Global 5 Under 35 Award, Youth May Fourth Medal (Anhui Province), Young Faculty Career Award (USTCAF), and some Best Paper/Presentation/Poster/Image Awards in IAFSS or AOSFST.
ROGAUME Thomas is an Professor at the University of Poitiers – Pprime Institute (UPR3346 CNRS), FRANCE.
Prof. Yuji Nakamura is Full Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT), appointed as Affiliate Full Professor in Center for Fire Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science (since 2014). He currently serves the Head of Energy Conversion Laboratory and appointed as Department Chair since 2024. Prof. Nakamura has made professional service in Fire Science Community served as Management Committee of IAFSS during 2021-2023, worked as Co-chair of LOC in the most recent IAFSS symposium at Tsukuba, acting Associate Editor of Fire Technology since 2014 and board member of Fire Safety Journal since 2017.
Dr Felix Wiesner is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia and study the role of engineered timber in fire safety. I work in the Faculty of Forestry as part of the Wood Science department. My research focus has mostly been experimental, considering fire dynamics in timber compartments and the structural fire capacity of engineered timber products. In addition, I am interested in the performance of timber in exterior building or infrastructure setting. This closely interfaces with wildfire considerations for the wildland urban interface (WUI), especially when it comes to smouldering.
Arnaud Trouvé is Professor and Chair in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park, USA. He joined the Faculty in 2001 with a Ph.D. (1989) and Engineering Degree (1985) from École Centrale of Paris, France, and with previous experience as a combustion research engineer. Professor Trouvé’s research interests include fire modeling and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); application of data assimilation to fire and combustion; and physical modeling of combustion- and fire-related phenomena, including compartment fires, wildland fires and explosions. Professor Trouvé is a Fellow of the Combustion Institute and the recipient of the 2017 FORUM Sjölin Award. He has served on the editorial boards of the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Combustion and Flame, and Fire Technology, and is currently on the editorial boards of Combustion Theory and Modelling and the Fire Safety Journal. Professor Trouvé is also a past Chair of the US Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute (ESSCI) and a past Member of the Executive Board of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). He is a co-Chair of a recent initiative endorsed by IAFSS and called the “IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena” (the MaCFP Working Group) and the past Chair of a new network of leading higher-education institutions and research laboratories in fire safety engineering called the International Fire Safety Consortium (IFSC).
Dr Xinyan Huang is an Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Fire Safety Engineering. He received his PhD from Imperial College London, MSc from UC San Diego, and BEng from Southeast University, and was a Postdoc at UC Berkeley. Dr Huang is a Combustion Scientist and a Fire Safety Engineer who has co-authored over 200 journal papers. He is an Associate Editor of Fire Technology and International Journal of Wildland Fire, an editorial member of J. Building Engineering, Fire Safety J. and Fire and Materials, a Chartered Building Services and Fire Engineer, a committee member for HK Fire Safety Code, and a Fire Expert for HK High Court. He receives the NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund, Bernard Lewis Fellowship and Sugden Best Paper Award from Combustion Institute, “5 under 35” and Bono Award from the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE).