The Combustion Institute recognizes award winners who were to be honored during the originally scheduled 38th International Symposium on Combustion in July, 2020. Zhi Chen, Wenkai Liang, Yihua Ren, Martin Rieth, Xu Wen, and Xiaoyuan Zhang are the 2020 recipients of the Bernard Lewis Fellowship, established to encourage high quality research in combustion by young scientists and engineers.

Zhi Chen is a Senior Research Fellow of Robison College and Engineering Department at Cambridge University, UK. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Thermofluids Engineering from Cambridge University in 2017. His research focuses on high-fidelity simulation of turbulent combustion and thermoacoustic instabilities. Zhi is absolutely thrilled to receive this award, and thankful to his advisors, mentors, collaborators and to all of those who helped him thrive in this fascinating field with a fantastic community.

Wenkai Liang is a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, USA. In 2018, he earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University. His current research involves low-temperature chemistry, supercritical flames and catalytic combustion. Wenkai feels that it is a great honor and recognition for him to receive this award. He would like to thank his PhD advisor, Prof. Chung K. Law, for his tremendous support.

Yihua Ren is a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for Combustion Technology at the RWTH-Aachen University, Germany. He earned his B.C and Ph.D. in the Department of Energy and Power Engineering from Tsinghua University, China. His research interests focus on advanced laser diagnostics of multiphase combustion, flame synthesis of advanced nanomaterials, and electric field-induced flame instability. Yihua feels encouraged by this award for his future academic career. He would like to express great gratitude to his Ph.D. supervisor, Prof. Shuiqing Li, who introduced him to this field and gave him great support, and Prof. Heinz Pitsch who inspired and advised him in his postdoc research. He would also like to thank his collaborators, colleagues, as well as friends and family.

Martin Rieth is a postdoctoral researcher in the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia National Laboratories, USA. In 2018, he earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Martin’s interests include high-performance computing and direct numerical simulations of complex turbulent combustion environments. Martin has enjoyed working on simulating a variety of combustion systems in the past few years and feels very grateful for receiving recognition for this work. He would like to thank his Ph.D. and postdoc advisors Andreas Kempf and Jackie Chen, and is looking forward to traveling to the next Symposium in Australia.

Xu Wen is a Humboldt Research Fellow in the Institute for Simulation of Reactive Thermo-Fluid Systems at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. In 2018, he earned his Ph.D. in Energy Engineering from Zhejiang University, China. Currently, he is developing high-fidelity numerical models for multiphase combustion in atmospheric and engine environments. Xu feels honored to receive the Bernard Lewis Fellowship. He says that it boosts his confidence for research on the application of the developed numerical models to the industrial furnaces and the new combustion technologies. He would like to thank his Ph.D. supervisors, Profs. Jianren Fan and Kun Luo, and his Humboldt hosts, Profs. Christian Hasse, Andreas Dreizler and Johannes Janicka, and all his collaborators for their guidance and support.

Xiaoyuan Zhang is a postdoctoral researcher at Clean Combustion Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. In 2019, she earned her Ph.D. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. Her current research interests are combustion reaction kinetics of fossil fuels and biofuels, and model development for surrogate and real fuels. Xiaoyuan says that this award strengthens her sense of responsibility to make continuous contributions to the combustion community. She would like to express her gratitude to her supervisors, Profs. Fei Qi, Yuyang Li and Philippe Dagaut, for their guidance and support during her PhD studies, and also her collaborators for their indispensable contributions.

Please join The Combustion Institute in congratulating the Bernard Lewis Fellowship recipients, and the other honored 2020 award winners in the international combustion community. Questions regarding awards may be directed to: Office@CombustionInstitute.org.