Harindra Joseph Fernando - University of Notre Dame

Candidate for:

Vice-President for the Americas 

Biography

Harindra Joseph Fernando is currently the Wayne and Diana Murdy Endowed Professor of Engineering and Geosciences at University of Notre Dame. He received his education at the University of Sri Lanka (BS), the Johns Hopkins University (MA, PhD) and was a post-doctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology. His career started at Arizona State University in 1984 as an assistant professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering, and was an Associate Professor (1988-92), Professor (1992-2010) and was the director of the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Center during 1994-2010.  He joined University of Notre Dame in 2010. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Physical Society, American Meteorological Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Geophysical Union. He was elected to the European Academy in 2009. He received docteur honoris causa form University of Grenoble, France, in 2014 and Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa from University of Dundee, Scotland in 2016.  He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Fluid Dynamics and an Editor of the journals Theoretical and Computational Fluid Dynamics and Journal of Non-Linear Processes in Geophysics and an Associate Editor of the Proceedings of the Royal Society (London). He has published more than 360 archival journal papers spanning some sixty international archival Journals, covering basic fluid dynamics, experimental methods, oceanography, atmospheric sciences, environmental sciences and engineering, urban fluid mechanics, air pollution, alternative energy sources, acoustics, heat transfer and hydraulics and fluids engineering.  He was a Principal Investigator of many international field experiments, including MATERHORN, PERDIGAO, CASPER, ASIRI, ASIRI-RAWI, MISO-BOB, IFFExO, C-FOG and Fatima. 

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Candidate’s Statement 

I am deeply honored to be nominated to stand election for the IAHR Vice President of American Regional Division for the 2023-25 term. Having been active in IAHR since the early 1990s, while contributing as the Chair of the Fluid Mechanics Committee (2017-2021), an Associate Editor of the Journal of Hydro-environment Research (2007-2014) and a speaker at various IAHR congresses, symposia, and summer schools, I consider this prospective leadership position as an entrée for contributing to IAHR from a higher sphere. If elected, I will use multiple strategies for enhancing the role of American Regional Division through following avenues: 

• Initiate a membership drive via outreach in order to increase participation, especially of students and industry practitioners. This also involves increasing institutional memberships and YPNs. Partnerships of major American [university and industry] hydraulic and environmental fluid mechanics laboratories need to be sought.  

• Institute a triennial divisional conference featuring currently fiery themes in hydro-environment research; kindred events are currently non-existent. High-profile lunchtime/keynote speakers from the government, industry and NGOs, policy forums on topics of current IAHR interest, and attracting more exhibitors for conferences may bolster the public visibility, press coverage and sponsorships 

• Attract funds for travel and named awards for the proposed divisional conferences. My home institution, University of Notre Dame, has received a commitment to establish a named lecture at the biennial IAHR congress, and similar avenues will be pursued for the North American Division.   

• Escalate contributions of the North American Division to major IAHR activities such as meetings, workshops, monographs, flagship publications.  

• Nurture and enhance collaboration between North and South American IAHR member groups. Cross-cutting activities with disparate IAHR divisions needs to be strengthened.  

• Pursue all divisional activities on a common fabric representing Excellence in Science and Engineering, Professionalism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.