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We are pleased to introduce the plenary and keynote speakers for V-ICEHT 2026:
Villanova University, USA
Sylvie Lorente is the inaugural William M. Brown ’84, ’87 Endowed Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Villanova University, PA, USA, since June 2024. She is the Associate Dean for Research & Innovation in the College of Engineering. She is also Professor (Exceptional Class) at the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA), University of Toulouse, France. In 2019 she joined Villanova University as College of Engineering Chair Professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Lorente is also Adjunct Professor at Duke University (USA). She was appointed Hung Hing-Ying Distinguished Visiting Professorship in Science and Technology at Hong Kong University (Hong Kong) from 2017 to 2022, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) from 2011 to 2021. She is a member of the Academia of Europaea, and a member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Energy Conversion and Management and a member of several editorial boards. Sylvie has a passion for flow architectures, and works on thermal design, energy storage, vascularized structures, porous media, biological flow networks, urban design and organizations. Together with her group, she uncovers the engineered and biological hierarchical flow pathways that endow complex systems with efficient properties and behaviors. She is the author of 7 books, 10 book chapters and 230+ peer-reviewed international journal papers. She is listed among the top 2% most cited scientists worldwide since 2017.
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Southern Methodist University, USA
Prof. Ali Beskok received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Türkiye in 1988. He received an MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis in 1991, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 1994 and 1996, respectively. Beskok was a Visiting Scholar at Brown University, Center for Fluid Mechanics from 1994 to 1996, and a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Research Laboratory of Electronics from 1996-1998. He joined Texas A&M University Mechanical Engineering Department as an Assistant Professor in 1998, and became an Associate Professor in 2004. In 2007, he moved to Old Dominion University, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department as the Batten Endowed Chair Professor of Computational Engineering. He was also the founding director of the ODU Institute of Micro and Nanotechnology. In August 2013, he moved to Southern Methodist University as the chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department and served at this capacity until June 2019. Currently, he is the George R. Brown Chair in Mechanical Engineering, and the Associate Dean for Research Innovation and PhD education in the SMU Lyle School of Engineering.
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Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Helcio Orlande was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1965. He obtained his Mechanical Engineering degree at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 1987 and his master's degree in mechanical engineering at the same University in 1989. After obtaining his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 1993 at North Carolina State University, he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering of UFRJ, where he was the department head during 2006 and 2007. His research areas of interest include the solution of inverse heat and mass transfer problems, as well as the use of numerical, analytical and hybrid numerical-analytical methods of solution of direct heat and mass transfer problems. Prof. Orlande has advised 46 undergraduate final design projects, 38 Master theses and 29 Ph.D. dissertations. His students have followed very successful careers in the academia and in the industry, both in Brazil and abroad. He is the co-author of 5 books, 9 book chapters, 2 patents and about 400 papers in major journals and conferences. He appears in the top 2% world scientist list of Stanford University since 2019. Prof. Orlande is currently the Vice-President of the Assembly for International Heat Transfer Conferences and the Chair of the 18th International Heat Transfer Conference that will be held in Rio de Janeiro (August, 2026). Prof. Orlande is a member of the Scientific Council and of the Executive Committee of the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer. He serves on the Editorial Boards of the journals Heat Transfer Engineering, High Temperatures - High Pressures, Archives of Thermodynamics and International Journal of Thermal Sciences. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Computational Thermal Sciences.
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Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy
He earned his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Catania (Italy) in 2001 and went on to complete a Ph.D. in Materials and Chemical Engineering at the University of Messina (Italy) in 2011. His professional journey began in 2001 as a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Energy Technologies (CNR-ITAE) in Messina, where he has steadily advanced to the position of Full Researcher since 2011 and then Senior Researcher in the 2023. Over the years, he has been deeply engaged in research, project development, and management within the field of energy technologies, with particular expertise in solar energy systems, thermally driven heat pumps, solar cooling, and thermal energy storage. His work bridges both experimental and applied research, contributing to the development of sustainable and efficient energy solutions. He has led several scientific projects as a coordinator, including Horizon 2020 initiatives, and has collaborated extensively with national and international private sector partners. His academic contributions include four book chapters and more than 140 publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Internationally recognized, he has served as an expert within the Solar Heating and Cooling (SHC) and Energy Conservation in Buildings and Community Systems (ECES) programs of the International Energy Agency (IEA). From 2020 to 2024, he coordinated SP3 Thermal Energy Storage within the Joint Programme on Energy Storage of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) and has served as its deputy coordinator since June 2024.
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