Center for Advanced Research in Drying

We are delighted to announce that PhD candidate Itamar Harris was selected as the winner of the Best Research Poster Award in the Research Poster Competition at the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) IMECE 2025 Conference. The event was held from November 16–21, 2025 in Memphis, Tennessee.

Itamar’s presentation was entitled, “Laser Technology for Sustainable Industrial Drying in Energy-Intensive Industry Sectors,” emphasizing the potential of laser technology for improving the energy efficiency of industrial drying processes. Her participation included both a technical presentation and a research poster.

Itamar Harris is advised by Professor Jamal Yagoobi, and this project is sponsored by the Center for Advanced Research in Drying.

Congratulations, Itamar!

Wishing everyone a healthy and happy !

The CARD leadership team extends their heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Wei Yang of Mondelēz International for his many contributions and wish him the very best for a happy, healthy, fulfilling retirement.

Wei has been an active and valued member of CARD since its inception. Having participated in the very first CARD event, he has been a guiding presence and has played a pivotal role in shaping and strengthening the CARD program over the years.

Pictured in the photo from left to right are: Yuxiang (Shawn) Liu, CARD Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Co-Director; Srinivasa Salapaka, CARD University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Site Director; Itamar Harris, WPI PhD student; Jamal Yagoobi, WPI, CARD Director; Wei Yang, Mondelez; Jesse Kiefer, Mondelez, and Sheyla Ramsay, PhD Ramsay, PepsiCo.

A Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) experiment focused on a new way to prevent electronics from overheating flew into space Sept. 18, 2025, aboard a Blue Origin spacecraft, giving researchers led by Jamal Yagoobi a critical opportunity to advance their technology by testing it in zero-gravity and multi-gravity settings.

The uncrewed suborbital flight lasted just over 10 minutes, including slightly more than three minutes of weightlessness, and carried more than 40 scientific and research payloads. Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft blasted off and landed at a site near El Paso, Texas, while Yagoobi, the George F. Fuller Professor of Mechanical Engineering, watched a live webcast of the flight in his Multi-Scale Heat Transfer (MHT) Laboratory with students who had worked on the WPI experiment.

“Many people, including students and collaborators at NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration, deserve credit for working hard on this project during the years leading up to this mission,” says Yagoobi. “The results of our experiment aboard the flight confirm that our design can significantly reduce the surface temperatures of electronics in zero-gravity and much higher gravity conditions. Because of the excellent results we obtained, we are very close to commercializing our electrohydrodynamic cooling technology, as our project has reached a new level of maturity as designated by NASA’s Technology Readiness Level.”

From left, are Mana Masrouri, a PhD student, and Jamal Yagoobi as they applaud a spacecraft carrying a WPI experiment, which successfully returns to Earth.

https://www.dryingresearch.org/2025/10/17/researchers-led-by-jamal-yagoobi-send-experiment-to-space-aboard-blue-origin-spacecraft/

We wanted to share some photos from our bi-annual meeting. Featured left to right in the first image are: Joseph Krause of LASERLINE Inc., Andrew Banka, Airflow Sciences Corporation and Oleg Raykis, Laserline Inc.

In the second image are left to right: Itamar Harris, PhD student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) with Sanjay Sarang PhD of PepsiCo and CARD IAB Chair.

Hailey Anderson of Kerry Foodservice speaks with Yan Wang, WPI PhD student (center) and Joseph A. Rivera of Kerry.

Thanks everyone for a great meeting. See you in October!