Michigan Tech Dean of Engineering Named to ASME Board of Governors

William Worek, Michigan Technological University’s dean of engineering, has accepted an appointment to serve on the Board of Governors of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

His three-year term begins in June 2013. The Board of Governors provides ASME with professional leadership and direction in support of the organization’s mission, vision and strategic initiatives, and it establishes the society’s policies and procedures. Worek has been a member of ASME since 1976 and is an ASME Fellow.

In addition to serving as dean, Worek is the Dave House Professor. Previously, he was head of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC), where he also served as director of the Energy Resources Center. He is an expert in energy systems, comfort, industrial processes and combined heat and power.  He has received the Harold A. Simon Award for Excellence in Teaching, presented by UIC’s College of Engineering, and has been nominated for the UIC Excellence in Teaching Award.

Among his ASME activities, he served as vice president of the Energy Resources Group and was a longtime member of the Publications Committee. He is also the editor of Applied Thermal Engineering, the coordinating editor of Heat Transfer Asian Research, and associate editor for the journal Energy. He is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer and International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer.

Worek earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering and both his master’s and doctorate in mechanical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Worek is one of three new members nominated to the ASME Board of Governors. The others are Stacey Swisher Harnetty, director of stream strategy at the Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport, Tenn.; and Andrew C. Taylor, PC, a mechanical engineering supervisor at Entergy Nuclear in Russellville, Ark.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.