Mechanical engineering professor wins Avram Bar-Cohen Memorial Medal
Published: Dec 8, 2022 9:00 AM
By Jeremy Henderson
Pradeep Lall, the MacFarlane Endowed Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is the inaugural winner of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Avram Bar-Cohen Memorial Medal. The honor was conferred at the 2022 ASME InterPACK Conference recently held in Garden Grove, Calif. The InterPACK is a flagship conference of the ASME Electronics and Photonic Packaging Division (EPPD and focuses on electronics packaging and heterogeneous integration.
The award is named for Avram Bar-Cohen, a stalwart in the field of electronic packaging. The ASME Avram Bar-Cohen Memorial Medal recognizes contributions to academic, research and industrial communities in the broad field of heat transfer and related electronics, photonics, mechanics and packaging phenomena. The award is given to a nominee with seminal contributions to electronics packaging.
The ASME wrote that Lall was selected “for long-lasting impact on state-of-art related to harsh environment electronic manufacturing and reliability, as well as significant contributions to reliability physics of fine pitch electronics in the development of electronics capable of sustaining operations of high temperatures and very high-g loads.”
“I got to know (Bar-Cohen) through my interactions at the ASME and IEEE conferences,” Lall said. “The lasting impact of his service on technical society, specifically the ASME, will live on for a long time. It is special to be the recipient of the medal named after him.”
Lall is best known for the design, manufacturing and reliability research in harsh environment electronics and serves as director of Auburn University’s NSF-CAVE3 Electronics Research Center (CAVE3).
“Electronics are increasingly used for critical functions in automotive, aerospace and defense platforms where the operating environment is extreme over the entire use-life. Ability to use the latest technologies while assuring survivability over the design-life requires a foundational understanding of reliability physics,” Lall said
Under Lall’s leadership, the CAVE3 Electronics Research Center has grown in size and global prominence for advancements in extreme environment electronic systems. Lall joined the Auburn faculty in 2002 after a distinguished industry career at Motorola, where he worked on designing and manufacturing wireless products such as mobile phones and two-way radios.
In 2015, Lall led the Auburn University team that was part of the winning proposal for the foundation of the NextFlex National Manufacturing Institute. Lall serves on the technical council of NextFlex and is the academic co-lead of the asset monitoring and automotive electronics technical working groups. Auburn University is the tier-1 founding member of the NextFlex National Manufacturing Institute.
“Harsh environment electronics is extremely important to both the local economic development and the nation,” James Weyhenmeyer, Auburn University’s vice president for Research and Economic Development, said. “Dr. Lall’s work in this area has made a noticeable impact. I am glad to see his contributions recognized with this medal.”
Lall’s body of scholarly work spans more than 850 journal and conference papers, more than 50 of which received “Best Paper” awards. In 2016, he was awarded the National Science Foundation’s Alex Schwarzkopf Prize for Technology Innovation.
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Pradeep Lall, right, recently received the ASME Avram Bar-Cohen Memorial Medal.
