Dr. Vladan Prodanovic
Program Director
The Master of Engineering Leadership (MEL) in Clean Energy Engineering targets young professionals — engineers or those from environmental science with a flair for engineering — who have a passion for sustainable practices in clean energy and renewable energy systems. The program brings together a small group of like-minded people who want to deepen their technical knowledge and also want to gain soft skills to become leaders in this growing field.
I will be teaching three of the classes — sustainable energy systems, energy storage and transmission, and energy efficiency and conservation. My professional interests in energy efficiency and energy conservation in buildings and industrial systems are closely related to demand-side management, which is one of the important concepts we are discussing in the program. I am also interested in developing efficiency models of thermal systems using energy.
This concept allows us to compare different technologies and thermal systems, covering energy flows from the generation point to end users, and provides a common ground for analysis.
UBC is a great place for students, who also benefit from the university’s excellent connections to leading researchers across the globe. For example, the MEL in Clean Energy Engineering program is an integral part of the Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC). The Centre provides infrastructure and world-class laboratories for over 60 faculty members and 200 graduate students who are working on a number of multidisciplinary research projects in the field of clean energy engineering. Such research activities have placed the Centre at the top of its field, and it is internationally recognized for its work on fuel cells and hydrogen research, as well as biofuels.
Our industry colleagues are the most important partners in this program: they understand the value of using energy more efficiently, applying conservation measures and developing new technologies. Our industrial partners actively participate in curriculum development, provide industrial mentorship for student design projects, and hire graduates of the program to lead projects in this area.
Experience
Dr. Vladan Prodanovic has professional interests and expertise in the area of thermodynamics, heat transfer and multiphase flows, particularly in boiling heat transfer. Over the course of his research career, he has worked on a number of theoretical studies and models of the boiling phenomena as well as on their practical applications in nuclear industry and metallurgy. He has collaborated with industrial partners including ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Dillingen Hütte, Posco and Siemens. Dr. Prodanovic is also passionate about advancing engineering education, particularly in the area of sustainable engineering design, project-based learning and outreach programs. He is actively publishing in this area, and he also participates in projects related to the implementation of sustainable practices early in the engineering curriculum, and improving the Clean Energy Engineering program portfolio.