SAS-CI 2026

Keynote Speakers

Professor Ahmed Ghoniem

Ronald C. Crane Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Ahmed Ghoniem is the Ronald C. Crane Professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Reacting Gas Dynamics Laboratory at MIT. He is a leading expert in computation, combustion and energy. His contributions include novel algorithms to simulate turbulent reacting flows, supercritical fluids and dense multiphase flows; innovative approaches for passive and active control of combustion dynamics and emission; new technologies for biofuel production, membrane and chemical looping reactors for oxy-combustion and the production of hydrogen and other fuels and chemicals; and reactors and systems designs for renewable and alternative fuel production.

Ghoniem supervised more than 140 masters, Ph.D. and post-doctoral students; published more than 500 articles and a textbook on energy conversion engineering, and a number of patents. He is a fellow of the ASME, the APS, and the Combustion Institute, and associate fellow of the AIAA. He has received several awards including the ASME James Harry Potter Award in Thermodynamics, the AIAA Propellant and Combustion Award, the KAUST Investigator Award and the “Committed to Caring Professor” at MIT, and the Bernard Lewis Gold Medal from the Combustion Institute. He served on several administrative leadership roles and is currently Co-Editor in Chief of Progress in Energy and Combustion Science.

Professor Assaad Masri

Professor of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Sydney

Assaad Masri is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sydney where he has also received his PhD and BE Honours with the University Medal. Between 2011 and 2016, he has held a prestigious Australian Professorial Fellowship awarded by The Australian Research Council. He is the Chairman of the Australia and New Zealand section of the Combustion Institute and President-Elect of the International Combustion Institute. Masri has published over 230 journal papers and won several awards including the prestigious Silver Medal and the Jurgen Warnatz Gold Medal of the Combustion Institute. He was elected Fellow of the Combustion Institute in 2017 and has served its Board of Director and as Program Co-Chair for the 36th Combustion Symposium in Seoul, 2016.

Professor Masri’s research lies in the broad area of efficient energy conversion technologies with a focus on green and renewable fuels. He has led pioneering research in the turbulent combustion of gaseous fuels, dilute and dense spray flames, and atomization processes. His innovations in the design of burners that embody specific research issues such as turbulence-chemistry or droplet-turbulence interactions have advanced knowledge in these fields and continue to serve industry in the development of future combustors.

Professor Bassam Dally

Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Director of the Future Cement Initiative, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

Bassam Dally is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, KAUST, Saudi Arabia. Over the last 35 years, Prof Dally work was focused on a variety of research topics related to energy conversion, decarbonization and technology development. He has expertise in mineral processing, combustion, renewable energy, hybrids and alternative fuels production and utilization. Besides his well-cited scholarly work (12,550 citations, h-index = 56), including ~400 peer reviewed papers in leading scientific journals and conferences, Prof Dally has also authored 17 industry reports, named on 3 patents and managed industrial projects worth more than $10m.

Prof Dally has also established and currently leads an industry-government-KAUST consortium, Future Cement Initiative (FCI) in Saudi Arabia. This initiative aims to ensure sustainable production of cement into the future, through advanced research, development and deployment of innovative solutions that are in synergy with Vision 2030 and future decarbonization plans. Previous positions include head of mechanical engineering, deputy director of the centre for energy technology (University of Adelaide) and stream co-lead in the KAUST circular carbon initiative. Prof Dally is also the immediate ex-president of Saudi Arabian Section of the Combustion Institute. He won many awards over the years, including ‘Energy Professional of the Year in South Australia’, and recently was awarded a Fellowship of the Combustion Institute.

Professor Mani Sarathy

Professor of Chemical Engineering & Chair of the Clean Energy Research Platform, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

S. Mani Sarathy is a Professor and Chair of Chemical Engineering and Chair of the Clean Energy Research Platform at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). He also holds affiliations with the Mechanical Engineering and Environmental Science and Engineering programs at KAUST. Dr. Sarathy holds a Distinguished Professorship and leads a research team at Tohoku University. He previously served as Senior Manager of Technology and Innovation at ENOWA Hydrogen in NEOM (2020–2022) and currently consults on several large-scale hydrogen and e-fuel projects.

Dr. Sarathy was previously a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Combustion Chemistry group at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He received his PhD and M.A.Sc. in Environmental and Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto and his B.A.Sc. in Environmental Engineering (Chemical Specialization) from the University of Waterloo. He is a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher.

His research focuses on developing sustainable energy technologies with reduced environmental impact. A major thrust of his work is the use of chemical kinetic simulations to design fuels, electrolyzers, fuel cells, engines, and reactors.

Invited Speakers

Professor André Boehman

Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Vennema Professor of Engineering, University of Michigan

André Boehman is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Vennema Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan. He joined U-M in 2012 after serving for 18 years at Penn State as a Professor of Fuel Science. At U-M, Prof. Boehman serves as the Director of the Walter E. Lay Automotive Laboratory. He holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering: a BS from the University of Dayton (1986) and an MS (1987) and PhD (1993) from Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers, the American Chemical Society, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Combustion Institute. He has received the 2009 John Johnson Award for Outstanding Research in Diesel Engines and the 2020 ASME Internal Combustion Engine Award, and has received awards from Penn State University and the University of Michigan for excellence in teaching, research and service.

Professor Venkat Raman

James Arthur Nicholls Collegiate Professor of Engineering, University of Michigan

Venkat Raman is the James Arthur Nicholls Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. He is also the Director of the Center for Prediction, Reasoning and Intelligence for Multiphysics Exploration (C-PRIME). He has served on the faculty at UM since 2014, before which he was a faculty member at UT Austin. He is a recipient of the George J. Huebener, Jr. Research Excellence Award from the University of Michigan. He was elected Fellow of the Combustion Institute in 2022 and serves as an Associate Editor of Combustion and Flame and the AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power. As a faculty member, Raman has advised/is currently advising 40 PhD students and has published more than 225 peer-reviewed articles in archival journals and conferences. Raman’s research interests lie in the broad area of computational propulsion, but he has more recently focused on the use of machine intelligence for scientific research.