Prof. John H. Lienhard V

Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Water and Mechanical Engineering at MIT

John H. Lienhard V is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Water and Mechanical Engineering at MIT. During three decades on the MIT faculty, Lienhard’s research and educational efforts have focused on heat and fluid flow, water purification and desalination, and thermodynamics. Lienhard received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in thermal engineering at UCLA from the Chemical, Nuclear, and Thermal Engineering Department. He joined MIT immediately after completing his PhD in the Applied Mechanics and Engineering Science Department at UC San Diego. Lienhard’s research on desalination has included humidification-dehumidification, membrane distillation, forward and reverse osmosis, solar-driven desalination, nanofiltration, electrodialysis, management of high salinity brines, thermodynamic and energy efficiency analysis of desalination cycles. Lienhard has directly supervised more than 85 graduate theses and postdoctoral associates and has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. He holds more than forty US Patents and pending applications, many of which have been commercialized in the water industry.  He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Registered Professional Engineer.