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J.H. Keenan’s Contribution to Thermodynamics

Ahmed F. Ghoniem Dr. Susan Hockfield George N, Hatsopoulos '49, SM '50, ME '54, SCD '56: October 4, 2007; Running Time: 0:55:08

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

Joseph Henry Keenan, whom this symposium honors, died in 1977, but his groundbreaking work continues to influence the field of thermodynamics, as his colleagues, protégés and scientific descendants attest. Keenan’s efforts had practical outcomes, such as determining the properties of steam, which boosted the electric power industry. But as Ahmed Ghoniem says, Keenan’s exploration and reformulation of the laws of thermodynamics helped place this field in the center of such diverse, contemporary disciplines as the life sciences, energy, information, computation and the nanosciences. “The field has grown from a model of the heat engine to a set of fundamental principles that govern energy conversion in all forms.”

Keenan played a powerful role in MIT’s history as well, notes Susan Hockfield. In Keenan’s 40 years at the Institute, he served as a model teacher. He founded a school of thought and shaped the teaching and application of thermodynamics worldwide. His research “combined developing practical engineering tools with providing explanations of deep subtlety,” and he set a standard for academic leadership, heading the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the difficult post-Sputnik era.

To George Hatsopoulos, Keenan was “my mentor, my friend…His intuition was so unbelievably right; he always led me the right way.” Hatsopoulos shares personal anecdotes about Keenan’s rigorous thinking and precision with language, and offers two short video clips taken by Keenan’s daughter shortly before his death that reveal his method of inquiry. Hatsopoulos suggests that were Keenan alive, he would ask the symposium presenters and audience the following question: “Is entropy an intrinsic property of any system, whether microscopic or macroscopic, whether in a state of equilibrium or nonequilibrium? “

Lecture Details

Location: Broad Institute

About the Speakers

Ahmed F. Ghoniem

Ronald C. Crane (1972) Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Ahmed Ghoniem's research interests include high performance computing in turbulent reactive flow, computational mathematics, combustion dynamics and active control, modeling and simulation of transport-chemistry interactions in thermochemical and electrochemical systems including high temperature fuel cells, gasification processes and fuel production. He also explores high-performance, zero-emission integrated energy systems with CO2 capture.

Ghoniem has a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cairo University, Egypt, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Susan Hockfield

MIT President
Professor of Neuroscience

Susan Hockfield has served as the sixteenth president of MIT since December 2004. A strong advocate of the vital role that science, technology, and the research university play in the world, she believes that MIT can best advance its historic mission of teaching, research, and service by providing robust and sustained support for the ideas and energies of its faculty and students.

A noted neuroscientist whose research has focused on the development of the brain, Dr. Hockfield is the first life scientist to lead MIT and holds a faculty appointment as professor of neuroscience in the Institute's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Under her leadership, MIT has launched a major Institute-wide initiative in energy research and education and continues to expand its activities at the intersection of the life sciences and engineering, with a particular focus on cancer research. The Institute has also embarked on a sustained effort to strengthen support for student life and learning, including undergraduate curriculum renewal, and is undertaking major campus construction and renovation projects with a combined value of approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars.

Before assuming the presidency of MIT, Dr. Hockfield was the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology and provost at Yale University. She joined the Yale faculty in 1985 and was named full professor in 1994. While at Yale, she played a central role in the university's leadership, first as dean of its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1998-2002), with oversight of more than 70 graduate programs, and then as provost, the university's chief academic and administrative officer.

Dr. Hockfield earned her B.A. in biology from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. from the Georgetown University School of Medicine, while carrying out her dissertation research in neuroscience at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at San Francisco in 1979-80, and then joined the scientific staff at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York in 1980. She served as director of the Laboratory's Summer Neurobiology Program from 1985 to 1997, concurrent with her teaching post at Yale, and more recently as a trustee of the laboratory. Her memberships in professional societies include the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Neuroscience.

George N, Hatsopoulos '49, SM '50, ME '54, SCD '56

Chairman, American DG Energy

George N. Hatsopoulos is also the founder and CEO of Pharos, LLC, an organization devoted to the creation of leading edge business ventures, and the founder and chairman emeritus of Thermo Electron Corporation, where he served as Chairman and CEO from its founding in 1956 until his retirement from those positions in 1999.

Hatsopoulos has served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, including a term as chairman. He was a member of the SEC Advisory Committee on Capital Formation and Regulatory Process, the Advisory Committee of the US Export-Import Bank, and the boards of various corporations and institutions.

Hatsopoulos is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and other scientific and technical organizations. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards in engineering, science, industry and academics, has authored over 60 articles in professional journals, and is the principal author of textbooks in Thermodynamics and Thermionic Energy Conversion.

Hatsopoulos has been a faculty member and senior lecturer at MIT and continues his association with the Institute as a Life Member of the Corporation and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Committee. Hatsopoulos holds a bachelors degree from the National Technical University of Athens, and masters and doctorate degrees from MIT.

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