Douglas Kelley receives Edmund A. Hajim Outstanding Faculty Award

One of the leading minds in fluid dynamics in the brain is turning heads for his excellence in teaching, research, and service. Douglas Kelley, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineeringand staff scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, received this year’s Edmund A. Hajim Outstanding Faculty Award.

“His work has been fundamental in putting the University on the map as the world leading institution for studying fluid dynamics in the brain,” said Renato Perucchio, professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “At the same time, his research in scalable solar power generation and energy storage is also critically important. I rank him as one of the most brilliant and successful engineering faculty at his career stage I have known in my entire professional life.”

Kelley joined Rochester’s mechanical engineering faculty in 2013 as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 2019 and was named staff scientist at LLE in 2021. From 2019-2020 he was also a visiting associate professor at the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Copenhagen.

Kelley earned a prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award in 2016 to study how fluid dynamics affect the performance of liquid metal batteries. To date, he has earned more than $26 million as principal investigator or co-PI, of which $9.7 million is as PI.

A prolific scholar, Kelley has had 61 journal papers published since 2006 with high impact publications in Science, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science,Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, and Applied Mechanics Reviews.

His teaching and mentorship accolades include the 2017 G. Graydon Curtis ’58 and Jane W. Curtis Award for Nontenured Faculty Teaching and the David T. Kearns Faculty Teaching and Mentoring Award.

Within the University, Kelley’s service record is extensive including leading the Faculty Senate’s Ad-Hoc Committee for Graduate Diversity and Support in 2020 and serving on the Hajim Dean search committee in 2016. His professional service includes peer reviewing for major journals in fluid mechanics, physics, neuroscience, power sources, as well as for the European Research Council, National Science Foundation, and National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowships.

“Over the last nine years Doug Kelley has made outstanding contributions to developing the very high standards of research, teaching, and mentorship, which distinguish our department today,” said Perucchio. “These are all exceptional achievements that deserve to be recognized.”