Saif Al Hamad (’24 PhD, mechanical engineering), a research associate in the UWM Wind Tunnel Facility, has been named a recipient of the 2025 ASME Turbo Expo Early Career Engineer (TEECE) Award, a prestigious honor presented by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI).
This award recognizes outstanding early-career professionals in the field of turbomachinery who have demonstrated excellence in research and are actively contributing to advancements in energy systems. Only 20 engineers worldwide were selected for the 2025 cohort.
Al Hamad, who also is assistant director at the U.S. DOE Industrial Training and Assessment Center, presented his work on how new blade shapes work together with the air to make small wind turbines more efficient. By designing better blade shapes and understanding how air interacts with them, engineers can make wind turbines that produce more power, even at small sizes.
The TEECE Award supports recipients by providing registration and travel to the ASME Turbo Expo conference recently held in Memphis, Tenn. The award is open to engineers who are within five years of earning their most recent degree in a turbomachinery-related discipline.
Three UWM doctoral students also presented at the same conference, Kada Kada, Areej Khalil, and Md Tarif Raihan. All are advised by Ryo Amano, Kulwicki Fellow Professor.