Reproduced with files from the University of Alberta
University of Alberta mechanical engineering professor Sushanta Mitra has been named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers—a distinction reserved for those whose work provides “solutions that benefit mankind.”
Mitra leads a CMC project in which a 15-member team is trying to coax microorganisms to convert coal into methane. The methane produced from bioconversion could then be collected for use as a clean-burning fuel. The project draws on researchers from three Canadian universities, one U.S. university, the government of Alberta and a private company.
Mirta was born in India and earned his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering (with honours) at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India. His father, a physicist, sparked Mitra’s curiosity in engineering.
“He would come home with all these Popular Mechanics magazines and I’d read them,” he said. “I was good with math and science, and I wanted to become an engineer.”
Mitra also recently published a feature article in Lab on a Chip – a journal from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The article explores Mitra’s Reservoir on a Chip, a new device which enables researchers to see how oil is transported through tiny pores in rock at a scale too small for the human eye to see.