Rad in Dr. McDonald's Advanced Heat Transfer and Surface Technologies Laboratory
Milad Rezvani-Rad, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is this year's recipient of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering, Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering Division, Calgary Chapter Graduate Scholarship in Engineering. The scholarship is awarded by the Faculty of Engineering to one graduate student from across the Faculty. This year, Rezvani was the only recipient named. The scholarship recognizes significant academic and research achievement by graduate students engaged in research in the area of offshore, arctic, or pipeline engineering.
For his doctoral research, Rezvani studies the fabrication of coating systems for the protection of pipelines against freezing and bursting.
"The top layer of the coating system acts as the heating element," Rezvani explains. "It can operate in both anti-icing mode, providing continuous heat, or in a de-icing mode, where the coating system only generates heat when it is needed."
Rezvani is supervised by Dr. Andre McDonald at the University of Alberta and Dr. Christian Moreau at Concordia University in Montreal.
"Milad has exhibited superior academic performance in his studies and research," says McDonald. "And he balances his academic work with active participation in extracurricular leadership activities."
With his research to date, Rezvani has contributed to the publication of six journal articles, six conference papers, and six industrial reports. Rezvani hopes to defend his thesis in January 2020.
"The award came at the end of my studies and felt like a reward for hard work," says Rezvani. "It's nice to have the recognition at the end of my degree. It provided me motivation and commitment for the final push with my research."
Rezvani also received the Department of Mechanical Engineering's Sadler Graduate Scholarship, which is awarded to four graduate students annually on the basis of academic merit, creativity and intellectual curiosity. Other recipients of this year's Sadler Scholarship were Yunjian Chen, Conor Ruzycki and Yufan Zheng.
Rezvani feels strongly that his success is made possible by the work of his peers and professors.
"I feel so grateful to the whole department," he says. "It's such a collegial environment where everyone contributes to the success of everyone else."