Dr. Monem Beitelmal is a senior research scientist at the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute. Dr. Monem previously served as an associate professor of mechanical engineering with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Santa Clara University (SCU) from January 2009 till December 2013. Before joining SCU, Dr. Beitelmal spent eight years at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto California. As a member of the HP Labs Smart Data Center research team, his research work covered various areas in energy and sustainability from smart thermal control in systems and data centers to district cooling systems. At SCU, Dr. Beitelmal taught several undergraduate and graduate courses such as thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, Modern instrumentation, thermal systems design, energy conversion, equilibrium thermodynamics and gas dynamics.
Qatar Energy and Environment Research Institution, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar Energy efficiency and value-added products lead. Leading a number of research and development projects in system integration and energy efficiency in built environment. Current Projects (LPI) • (SMART) Energy Efficient Thermostat, • District cooling energy performance optimization • Solar-powered hybrid (membrane/thermal) water desalination system.
2014 – NowDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California This is a full-time faculty non-tenure track position with responsibilities that include teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in Mechanical Engineering, developing new courses, designing and teaching laboratory experiments, advising and mentoring engineering students, participating in School of Engineering activities and developing research proposals for external funding. SAMPLE COMPLETED RESEARCH PROJECTS • Water Desalination Project The goal of this senior design project was to build a scalable water purification system that is fully powered by solar energy. This project is partially funded by the Center of Science, Technology and Society and the School of Engineering at SCU. • New Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency Metrics Developed new energy efficiency metrics to facilitate proper evaluation of data centers power consumption. These metrics can be used to help reduce the cost of operation and to provision data centers power and cooling resources. • Waste-to-Energy Processes This project is conducted in collaboration with a start-up company (Enventix Inc). The goal of this research was to develop a novel reactor that uses bio-waste as a fuel for power generation.
2008 – 12/2013Hewlett Packard Research Laboratories, Palo Alto, California Provided consultation on the following projects for smooth handover of projects: Automated data center perforated tiles. Advanced management and control module. Alternative energy resources consideration in data centers.
01/2009 – 05/2009Hewlett Packard Research Laboratories, Palo Alto, California A lead researcher in the Sustainable IT Ecosystem Laboratory with responsibilities that include research and development of new cooling technologies at the chip, system and rack levels, development of new research areas and patentable inventions in thermal cooling solutions. Other responsibilities included providing thermal/mechanical technologies roadmap consultation to various HP business units. Key projects • Feasibility study and analysis of fuel cells and PV hybrid system that would be required to power an HPL data center. • Static smart cooling development (CFD modeling and analysis). • Dynamic Smart Cooling (flexible infrastructure distributed sensing and control). • Smart data center robot demonstration (navigating sensors platform). • Design and building of two-phase Loop Thermosyphon system. • Design of single-phase cooling loop system and rack levels. • Refrigeration (combined) cycle design for system, rack and data center level analysis. • Impinging air jet solution designed for system and rack levels integration. • Developed the training program and chaired the training workshops for the first and only HP Dynamic Smart Cooling technology transfer. • Developed the quick assessment calculator (an analytical tool for expedient energy analysis) currently used by Hewlett-Packard Services and marketing teams to estimate potential energy savings and carbon footprint reduction.
08/2000 – 12/2008Department of Mechanical Engineering, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California A part-time position to teach graduate Mechanical Engineering courses.
03/2003 – 09/2008Hewlett Packard Research Laboratories, Palo Alto, California Designed, built and tested several project prototypes and demonstration vehicles, examples are air jet cooling apparatus for system and rack levels (2 US patent applications were granted based on this work), combined “cascade” refrigeration cycle for sub-cooling processor to -40oC.
06/1996 –08/2000Mechanical Engineering Department, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California Performed extensive experimental and analytical work on jet impingement heat transfer where the effects of small roughness and jet inclination on heat transfer were evaluated and the final results were published. This work included designing and constructing the experimental apparatus, developing a graphical program to monitor and record the experimental data and employing analytical/numerical tools for the analysis of the experimental results. This work was funded by Hewlett Packard.
09/1995 – 08/2000Department of Mechanical Engineering, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California TA for various engineering courses such as thermodynamics and instrumentations.
09/1995 – 12/2000Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Davis, California An analytical perturbation technique (asymptotic expansions) was utilized to resolve the governing equations for an isolated liquid fuel droplet dynamics. This work was funded by NASA.
09/1993 – 12/1995Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Davis, California Teaching assistant: thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, heat transfer.
03/1993 – 12/1994School of Engineering, University of California, Davis, California Investigating the effects on the environment from the burning of rice-straw. This work was funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
09/1993 – 12/1994Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California Ph.D. Thesis: “Effects of Surface Roughness and Nozzle Inclination on Jet Impingement Heat Transfer.”
University of California, Davis, California M. S. Thesis: “Theoretical Modeling of the Effects of Small Gravitational Levels on Droplet Gasification.”.
University of Portland, Portland, Oregon
“Energy performance investigation of a district cooling system,” WIT Transaction on Ecology and the Environment, Vol 205
2016“Numerical investigation of data center raised-floor plenum,” ASME/IMECE,
November 13-19, 2015, Houston, TX.Off-the grid solar-powered portable desalination system,” Applied Thermal Engineering Journal,
Vol. 85, pp. 172-178, 2015.“Servers and Data Centers Energy Performance Metrics,” Energy and Buildings Journal,
Vol. 80, pp. 562-569, 2014.Kiriu, R., “Solar-Powered Water Distillation System,” ASME/IMECE 2013 San Diego, CA
NOV 2013.