John Lienhard

Research Interests

The activities of our research group are in the broad area of heat and mass transfer, thermodynamics, and fluid dynamics. Our focus is on technologies for desalination of seawater and brackish water, recycling of water, and treatment of and resource recovery from waste waters,  with increased energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact as core objectives. This work includes thermodynamic cycle analysis, transport processes in components, solar-energy driven systems, and both thermal and membrane separations.

Past activities in our lab have included: convection and fluid dynamics in liquid jet impingement; high heat flux engineering; thermally stratified turbulent flow and instrumentation; electronics thermal management; and thermally driven instabilities.

Bio

John H. Lienhard V is Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Water and Mechanical Engineering at MIT. During more than three decades on the MIT faculty, Lienhard’s research and educational efforts have focused on water purification and desalination, heat and mass transfer, and thermodynamics. He has also filled a number of administrative roles at MIT.

Lienhard received his bachelor's degree (summa cum laude) and master's degree in thermal engineering at UCLA from the Chemical, Nuclear, and Thermal Engineering Department, where he worked on thermal instabilities in solar collectors and evaporating meniscus measurements for desalination systems. He joined MIT immediately after completing his PhD in the Applied Mechanics and Engineering Science Department at UC San Diego, where he did wind tunnel measurements of spectra and cospectra in thermally stratified turbulent flow.

Since coming to MIT, Lienhard has worked on desalination processes, liquid jet impingement, high heat flux engineering, electronics thermal management, and other topics. His research in desalination includes humidification-dehumidification desalination, membrane distillation desalination, forward and reverse osmosis, fouling and scale formation, electrodialysis, nanofiltration, management of high salinity brines, solar-driven desalination, thermodynamic and energy efficiency analysis of desalination cycles, and energy-water nexus issues. Lienhard has directly supervised more than 90 PhD and masters theses. He is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and has been issued more than 40 US patents.

Lienhard is a recipient of the 1988 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the 1992 SAE Teetor Award, the 2012 ASME Technical Communities Globalization Medal, the 2015 ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, the 2019 ASME Edward F. Obert Award (in thermodynamics), the 2022 AIChE Donald Q. Kern Award (for expertise in heat transfer, transport phenomena, and energy conversion), and the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Desalination and Reuse Association. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Society of Thermal and Fluid Engineers.

Lienhard is the co-author of textbooks on heat transfer, on thermal modeling, and on measurement and instrumentation. His heat transfer book has been available online at no charge since 2002, and hundreds of thousands of copies have been downloaded worldwide. This book was among the very first engineering textbooks distributed in pdf format. His measurements book has sold more than 130,000 copies. He created new graduate courses on desalination, on thermal modeling, and on compressible fluid mechanics. He has also received several teaching and mentoring awards at MIT.

Lienhard has been the Director of the Rohsenow Kendall Heat Transfer Laboratory since 1997. He directed the Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy from 2008 to 2017, and he directed the Ibn Khaldun Fellowship for Saudi Arabian Women from 2009 to 2017.

In 2014, Lienhard founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab at MIT (J-WAFS), and he directed the lab until 2025. Under his leadership, J-WAFS awarded research grants of more than $25 million at MIT, supporting hundreds of researchers. In addition to scientific research, a dozen new companies were spun-out of J-WAFS.

Lienhard holds Professional Engineering licenses in Massachusetts and Vermont.

Online Data

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2901-0638

 

Google Scholar: John Lienhard

Honors + Awards

Selected Examples

• 2024, Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Desalination and Reuse Association
• 2023, Distinguished Alumnus of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at UC San Diego
• 2022, AIChE/ASME 2021 Donald Q. Kern Award
• 2021, Elected Fellow of the American Society of Thermal and Fluid Engineers
• 2019, ASME Edward F. Obert Award for outstanding paper on thermodynamics presented during the preceding two calendar years
• 2018, Chief Guest (commencement speaker), Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, 7ᵗʰ Convocation
• 2018, Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• 2018, Committed to Caring Award (for graduate advising), MIT Office of Graduate Education
• 2016, John R. Freeman Lecturer, Boston Society of Civil Engineers
• 2015, ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award
• 2015, Southwest Mechanics Lecturer
• 2014, Abdul Latif Jameel Chaired Professorship
• 2012, ASME Technical Communities Globalization Medal
• 2011-2017, Thirteen best paper/poster/presentation awards to our group (national & international conferences, journals)
• 2008-2014, Samuel C. Collins Chaired Professorship
• 2003, Den Hartog Distinguished Educator Award, MIT
• 2000, Fellow of ASME
• 1999, Carl R. Soderberg Distinguished Service Award, MIT
• 1997, R&D 100 Award
• 1994, Graduate Student Council Teaching Award, MIT
• 1993, Ruth and Joel Spira Teaching Award, MIT School of Engineering
• 1992, Ralph R. Teetor Award, Society of Automotive Engineers
• 1991, Best Paper Award, 26th ASME/AIChE National Heat Transfer Conference
• 1988-1991, Hatsopolous Professor
• 1988, Presidential Young Investigator Award, US National Science Foundation

Memberships

• American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Fellow
• American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow
• American Society of Thermal and Fluid Engineers, Fellow
• Registered Professional Engineer (Mechanical), Massachusetts and Vermont
• Scientific Council of the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer
• Tau Beta Pi
• Sigma Xi

Professional Service

Selected Examples

• International Desalination Association, Board of Directors: 2019-2022
• UAE Water Aid Foundation (Suqia), Advisory Board: 2016-2019
• World Economic Forum, Global Future Council on Food Security and Agriculture: 2016-2018
• Editorial Board, Desalination: October 2011-present
• Editorial Board, International Journal of Thermal Sciences: August 2010-present
• Editorial Board, Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer: April 2010-present
• Editorial Board, Desalination and Water Treatment: January 2009-present
• Editorial Board, Journal of Heat Transfer: 2003 - 2006
• Editorial Board, Experimental Heat Transfer: March 1995 - present
• State Implementation Plan Steering Cmt. for Air Quality, Massachusetts DEP: August 1994 - May 2017 (Air quality)

MIT Service

Selected Examples (from more than 100 items)

• Founding Director, Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Laboratory, May 2014-Feb. 2025 (J-WAFS)
• Founding Director, Ibn Khaldun Fellowship For Saudi Arabian Women, Nov. 2009-Sept. 2017 (IBK)
• Founding Director, Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM, June 2008-Oct. 2017
• Associate Department Head (Education), Department of Mechanical Engineering: July 2008-April 2012
• Undergraduate Officer, Department of Mechanical Engineering: July 2005 - April 2012
• ABET Accreditation Coordinator of ME Department: July 2005 - June 2008
• Head, Division of Fluids, Energy, and Transport: August 2001 - July 2005 
• Chairman, ME Faculty Hiring Committee: August 2001 - July 2005
• Chairman, ME Strategic Planning Committee: September 1997 - July 2000
• Director, Rohsenow Kendall Heat Transfer Laboratory: July 1997 - June 2025 (RK Lab)
• Joined MIT Faculty: January 1988

Teaching

• Heat and Mass Transfer (2.51, 2.55)
• Desalination (2.500)
• Modeling and Approximation in Thermal Systems (2.52)
• Free electronic textbook: A Heat Transfer Textbook, Fifth Edition
• Instrumentation textbook: Mechanical Measurements, Sixth Edition
• Thermal modeling textbook: Modeling and Approximation in Heat Transfer

Publications

See Publications list

Patents

See Recently Issued US Patents