A multidisciplinary group of 13 scholars, artists, and scientists who spent a portion of their careers at Johns Hopkins were inducted into the university’s Society of Scholars during a ceremony held in November at the George Peabody Library. Two of the inductees, Estelle Iacona and James J. Riley, are associated with the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
The society was established in 1967 by university President Milton S. Eisenhower to recognize former Hopkins affiliates who have made outstanding contributions to their fields. Representing fields as diverse as astrophysics, internal medicine, foreign relations, and nonfiction writing, this year’s cohort will join a coalition of former graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, house staff, or junior or visiting faculty who have served at least one year at Johns Hopkins but are no longer affiliated and have since made great strides in their fields. Members of the Society of Scholars are nominated by Johns Hopkins faculty members.
Estelle Iacona
Estelle Iacona, full professor at CentraleSupélec, is president of Université Paris-Saclay. After receiving her PhD in applied physics from CentraleSupélec in 2000, she joined Johns Hopkins University as a postdoctoral fellow in 2001.
Former Director of the EM2C, a CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) Laboratory, Iacona held the titles of vice president, dean of research, and provost at CentraleSupélec from 2012 to 2016. From 2016 to 2019 she was vice-president of academic affairs and research before becoming advisor to the president in charge of the Université Paris-Saclay project. She joined the Université Paris-Saclay presidency in 2020 as senior vice president. She currently serves on the board of directors for X-Fab Silicon Foundries as independent member.
Iacona is an engineer specializing in thermal science. Her main publications are in the domains of applied physics, heat and mass transfer, radiative properties of gases, porous media, as well as energy challenges for the future.
James J. Riley
James Riley is a professor emeritus in mechanical engineering at the University of Washington. After receiving his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University in 1971, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research before joining the startup company Flow Research (later Flow Industries). He joined the University of Washington in 1983, teaching a number of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Before retirement, he held the inaugural PACCAR Endowed Chair of Engineering and has been the acting chair of his department.
Riley’s research has addressed many problems related to transitioning and turbulent fluid flows, including research on combustion, dispersion of pollutants, biological flows, and atmospheric and oceanographic flows. He is a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences (2012), and of the National Academy of Engineering (2014). He is a fellow of the American Physical Society (1988), and is past chair of its Division of Fluid Dynamics (twice). He is also a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2003), of the Institute of Physics (2004), and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2017). In addition to numerous career awards, he received the Director’s Award in 2010 from the U.S. Geological Service for his work on the Deep-Water Horizon Oil Spill. Riley has been an associate editor for the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and for the Journal of Turbulence. He has also been a member of the editorial committees of the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics and of the Applied Mechanics Reviews.