Honoring Dr. Reinhard Radermacher's legacy by supporting students who are innovating sustainable HVAC&R technologies
Donate to the Fellowship Program
Former CEEE Director Reinhard Radermacher (1952–2025) founded the Distinguished Graduate Endowed Fellowship for Energy Innovation in Mechanical Engineering to support students who are committed to innovating the next generation of sustainable heating and cooling solutions.
Each year, the fellowship supports one student from the Center for Environmental Energy Engineering who demonstrates outstanding academic excellence and a commitment to developing technologies that are efficient, affordable and environmentally friendly.
Professor Radermacher was an internationally recognized expert in energy conversion systems, specializing in heat pumps, air conditioners, refrigeration, and integrated cooling, heating, and power systems. His scholarship generated over 600 publications, including three books, more than 200 invention records and 17 U.S. patents. He consistently ranked in the top 2% of researchers worldwide based on the number of career-long citations of his work. Academics, researchers and other inventors alike sought him out for inspiration and insight.
A native of Germany, Dr. Radermacher earned his Ph.D. in physics from the Technical University of Munich in 1981 before moving to the United States and joining the University of Maryland faculty. In 1991, he co-founded CEEE to conduct pre-competitive research for the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) industry and to equip students with the tools to succeed in the workforce.
Dr. Radermacher cherished mentoring his students and entrusted them to expand on his life's work by building a future based on sustainable technologies. This fellowship program carries on his legacy by supporting student innovators.
Md Mehrab Hossen Siam's research focuses on innovating energy-efficient heat pumps. He is helping CEEE develop an efficient saturation high-temperature heat pump for waste recovery that will enable continuous, zero-carbon heat for processes with temperatures up to 200°C.
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Md Mehrab Hossen Siam's research focuses on innovating energy-efficient heat pumps.
Het Mevada specializes in a groundbreaking technology called elastocaloric cooling, which relies on solid metals rather than conventional refrigerants. This eco-friendly technology leverages shape memory alloys, which release heat when compressed and absorb heat when relaxed.
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Het Mevada assembles a cascade elastocaloric cooling prototype in CEEE's Daikin Energy Innovation Laboratory.
Jangho Yang's research focuses on phase change materials (PCM), substances that release or absorb thermal energy when they change phases. He helps develop, fabricate and test PCM-embedded heat exchangers designed to to reduce the energy demand on HVAC systems.
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Jangho Yang presented his research findings at the 7th IIR Conference on Thermophysical Properties and Transfer Processes of Refrigerants.
Po-Ching Hsu harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to make HVAC systems more energy efficient. He uses machine learning to optimize variable refrigerant (VRF) technology — advanced HVAC systems that adjust to the heating and cooling needs of multiple zones within a building.
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Po-Ching Hsu is exploring how AI can maximize the energy efficiency of VRF systems, like the one installed at UMD's Glenn L. Martin Hall.
The fellowship application is available online starting in July. Recipients are announced in the fall. Donations are appreciated year-round.