Professor Henry Receives 2018 FAMU/FSU Mechanical Engineering Rising Star Alumni Award

“In July 2018, Asegun Henry will start as an associate professor in Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Henry began his career as an assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech in 2012. He holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Florida A&M University through the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and both MS and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.

Henry’s doctoral research focused on the development of high thermal conductivity polymers, based on theoretical insights gained from molecular dynamics simulations. Before joining Georgia Tech, Henry worked as a postdoc in the materials theory group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) developing an approach to predict the thermal conductivity of materials from first principles. After ORNL, he then went on to work as a postdoc in the materials science department at Northwestern University. Later, he worked as a fellow in the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), where he focused on identifying new program areas, such as higher efficiency and lower cost energy capture, conversion and storage.

Henry has developed the highest temperature pump on record, which is now in the Guinness Book of World Records. This technological breakthrough has opened the door for many new high temperature energy systems concepts, such as a methane cracking for CO2 free hydrogen production and a new cost competitive approach to grid level energy storage.

Celebrating his many accomplishments, the FAMU-FSU Engineering mechanical engineering department recognized Henry as a Rising Star Alumni in 2018.”