Replacing Gary. R. Hooper
Academic Vice President John S. Tanner announced on Monday (Aug. 1) the appointment of Brent W. Webb as the associate academic vice president for research and graduate studies at Brigham Young University. The appointment will be effective Aug. 15.
“Brent Webb brings to the university exceptional experience in the areas covered by this assignment,” said Tanner. “He is a first-rate teacher and scholar.”
Webb, a professor of mechanical engineering and former executive director of the BYU Office of Research and Creative Activities, replaces Gary R. Hooper, who will take a leave of absence during the upcoming academic year before retiring from the university.
“Gary Hooper has brought vision and imagination as well as graciousness and personal integrity to his position, and he will be deeply missed,” said Tanner. “He has been the chief architect of the mentoring program at BYU, which will have a long life after he is gone.”
Webb graduated from BYU with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering before earning a doctorate at Purdue University in 1986, the same year he joined the BYU mechanical engineering faculty. He has also been an adjunct professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah since 1994.
He was named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering in 2003, and was a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator from 1986-1991. His BYU honors include an Alumni Professorship and a Karl G. Maeser Research and Creative Arts Award, as well as several citations as best teacher in the Mechanical Engineering Department.
Webb’s research specialties include the exploration of high heat flux liquid jet impingement heat transfer in industrial-scale furnaces, fluid flow and heat transfer in microchannels, and the characterization of radiation properties of foams.
In collaboration with other researchers, he has developed software for modeling the detailed thermal transport in glass-melting furnaces that is used in both the United States and Japan. His work on new modeling approaches for predicting spectral radiation heat transfer in high-temperature gases is used worldwide.
He is the author or co-author of more than 150 articles in a variety of research publications and has lectured throughout the United States and abroad.
Writer: Cecelia Fielding
