The Combustion Institute and Elsevier, with the assistance of an award committee, have selected two members to receive the annual Hiroshi Tsuji Early Career Researcher Award. This year’s winners are Zheng Chen and Michael Gollner, each of whom are recognized for significant contributions and research in fundamental or applied combustion or combustion-related fields.

Dr. Zheng Chen received his B.E. and M.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2001 and 2003, and Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 2009. After that, he joined Peking University as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Co-PI of BIC-ESAT in 2018. His research interests are in the areas of flame dynamics, propulsion systems, alternative fuels, and multi-scale modeling of reactive flow. Combining theoretical analysis, numerical simulation, and experiment measurement, his group has worked on challenging problems on ignition, accurate laminar flame speed measurement, fast flame propagation in autoignitive mixtures, deflagration-to-detonation transition, and detonation engines.

“It is a great honor for me to receive the 2020 Hiroshi Tsuji award. This is a recognition of the work done not only by myself but also by my group and collaborators. I am thankful to my advisor, Professor Yiguang Ju, for introducing me to this fascinating area of combustion and for his continuous support. I am also thankful to my group at Peking University and I feel lucky to work on combustion together with these intelligent and diligent students. I thank my family, my colleagues and friends in the combustion community, and the Chinese Section of the Combustion Institute for helping and supporting me,” said Dr. Chen.