Awards
U.S. Early Career Combustion Investigator Award
The U.S. Early Career Combustion Investigator Award recognizes the contributions of an early career combustion investigator from within the United States as well as excellence in combustion research, the potential for future leadership in the field and service to the combustion research community. This award is presented biannually at the U.S. National Combustion Meeting.
2025 Award Winner: Sili Deng (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
2025 Award Winner: Sili Deng (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Prof. Sili Deng is the Class of 1954 Career Development Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her doctoral degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University, co-advised by Profs. Chung K. Law and Michael E. Mueller. After her postdoctoral training with Prof. Xiaolin Zheng at Stanford University, she joined MIT as an Assistant Professor in 2019. Her research focuses on energy conversion and storage, specifically, the fundamental understanding of combustion and emissions, physics-informed data-driven modeling of reacting flows, carbon-neutral energetic materials, and flame synthesis of materials for catalysis and energy storage. Prof. Deng received the Bernard Lewis Fellowship from the Combustion Institute in 2016, was selected as a member of the Frontiers of Engineering from the National Academy of Engineering in 2021, received the NSF CAREER Award in 2022, was selected as a Scialog Fellow by Research Corporation for Science Advancement in 2024, and received the Irvin Glassman Young Investigator Award by Eastern States Section of Combustion Institute and the Energy and Fuels Rising Star Award in 2024. Award Winner Announcement
2023 Award Winner: Derek Splitter (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Dr. Splitter received his M.S. and PhD. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the Engine Research Center. He currently is a senior staff research member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Combustion and Fuel Science Group, where he studies alternative fuels and low-carbon transportation solutions, advanced materials, neutron imaging, premixed, heterogeneous, abnormal, and kinetically controlled combustion internal combustion engine processes. He is active in the engine combustion community and has authored over 90 publications and multiple patents in engine materials, fuels, and combustion processes ranging conventional spark and compression ignition processes, stochastic pre-ignition, novel bi-metallic materials, to advanced combustion processes including HCCI, RCCI, PPC. Some of his work has been distinguished with the SAE Horning Memorial, and Myers Awards, an R&D 100 finalist and winner, and he is an active member in SAE, ASME, and The Combustion Institute.
2019 Award Winner: Gregory B. Rieker (University of Colorado Boulder)
Dr. Rieker was selected for this award for outstanding contributions in the development of advanced laser technologies for combustion diagnostics and remote sensing.
