Jay Gore receives 2022 Bement Award for work in big data and machine learning

Jay Gore, the Reilly University Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has been chosen to receive the Arden L. Bement Jr. Award for highly significant and impactful contributions to big data, artificial neural networks, machine learning and artificial intelligence in physics-based models of energy.

Gore was the founding director of the Energy Center in Purdue’s former Discovery Park and formerly served as associate dean for research and entrepreneurship at Purdue. He also founded the award-winning Purdue Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships program in 2002. Beyond Purdue, he previously served as the founding vice chancellor and strategic advisor for the Maharashtra Institute of Technology World Peace University in Pune, India, and currently serves as its global ambassador.

Among myriad results of his extensive work is the prediction of lean blowouts — a type of engine combustion instability — in conventional and bio-fueled aviation gas turbine engines. He also is widely recognized for highly significant work to maximize efficiency and minimize carbon dioxide emissions of coal-burning power plants.

Katepalli Raju Sreenivasan, founding dean of the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, who wrote a letter in support of Gore’s nomination, pointed to Gore’s recent work in big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence as applied to challenges in turbulent combustion and energy, saying, “I regard that professor Gore’s recent work is eminently suitable for this high recognition.”

Anantha Narayanan, a data scientist with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, has been working with Gore to understand the effects of cycling — operating coal power plants at varying capacities below the design capacity on their efficiency and health — and quantifying the resulting costs. He said, “Professor Gore brought in new ideas of implementing exergetic analysis under transient conditions, which in the past has only been applied to steady-state conditions. He coupled this with a strategy to develop a data-driven model that is easier to deploy and performs better on plant computing equipment. This novel approach allows a robust model for cost estimation to be deployed under realistic plant conditions.”

Gore says he plans to continue to address grand societal challenges with his work, emphasizing one primary challenge: “My hope is that we as a human society will address the climate change problem, which is a real. I also hope to continue to contribute to our society by addressing that challenge.”

Recognized often for his research excellence, Gore has received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Best Paper of the year in Heat Transfer Research Award and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Best Paper of the Year in Propulsion Award. He is a fellow of both the AIAA and the ASME, as well as the Combustion Institute (International). He also received the Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1991.

Gore earned both his master’s and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering from Pennsylvania State University and completed his post-doctoral education at the University of Michigan.

The Arden L. Bement Jr. Award was established in 2015 by Distinguished Professor Emeritus Arden Bement and his wife Louise Bement to annually recognize a Purdue faculty member for recent outstanding accomplishments in pure and applied sciences and engineering. Winners of the Bement Award are nominated by colleagues, recommended by a faculty committee and approved by the executive vice president for research and the university president.

Gore will speak about “Big data, artificial neural networks, machine learning and artificial intelligence,” during the celebration’s lectures. The public is invited to this lecture and others that will begin a 3 p.m. on April 6 in the North Ballroom of the Purdue Memorial Union.