Alumni spotlight
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Bade Shrestha PhD'99 (Mechanical Engineering)
Solving the “global warming problem”
Dr. Bade Shrestha, PhD’99, studies alternative energy, from fuel combustion to wind turbines
When Dr. Bade Shrestha, PhD, arrived at UCalgary to start his master’s degree in mechanical engineering, he was happy to be back near the mountains. Born and raised in Nepal, Shrestha missed the Himalayas while studying for his undergraduate degree in aeronautical engineering (mechanical) at the Riga Civil Aviation Engineers Institute in Latvia.
“When I came to Calgary I saw a new city, a totally clean city but a little bit cold,” he says. “I grew up in Nepal and my schooling was there until twelfth grade. After that, I went to Europe to get my aeronautical degree, and then I came to Calgary to do my master's and PhD.”
In the long term, we will be able to solve the global warming problem.
Bade Shrestha PhD'99 (Mechanical Engineering)
He studied alternative fuel combustion and alternative types of fuel, a field that has grown dramatically since he completed his PhD in 1999. “It was a very good area because of global warming. People want to change their energy sources to get more environmentally friendly,” he says. “I taught a couple of courses at UCalgary as a faculty member, and I also worked in two environmental companies in Calgary as chief scientist or chief engineer.”
In 2003, Shrestha, now a professor, Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Fulbright U. S. Scholar, moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, to teach in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Western Michigan University.
Shrestha has published more than 75 papers on a range of topics, including wind energy, renewable energy, lithium-ion batteries, energy economics and policy, alternative fuel combustion, internal combustion engine knock modeling, flammability limits, and reacting flow dynamics. More recently, he’s been working on supersonic combustion in scramjets for space travel.
“Now, at a high level, we’re looking at space travel and space technologies to support that. We are also doing alternative energy—transformations. Hydrogen is one of the basic environmentally friendly fuels. On top of this, we have the electric car, and electric batteries are also important,” says Shrestha. “In the long term, we will be able to solve the global warming problem.”
Currently, Shrestha’s focus is on wind turbine noise. “We’re working on how to reduce the noise of wind turbines because there are tons of them everywhere, and it's getting to be too much for our neighbourhoods. They experience low-frequency noise—you don't hear them, but there's always a vibration, and your body will respond to that,” he says.
Shrestha has trained and mentored hundreds of students, received four patent applications and has been awarded the prestigious Mitsui Babcock Energy Award for the best fundamental scientific paper published in the Journal of Institute of Energy, London. He was also an associate editor for the ASME Journal of Energy Resources Technology for six years.
Still in touch with friends, colleagues and professors from his days at UCalgary, Shrestha recalls arriving with his wife and toddler in 1990. He knew two people—fellow students from Nepal—who helped the family settle. They felt at home quickly—the familiar mountains, impressive engineering faculty and a particularly nice university staff member who showed them around the city. “She took us to the winter festival to go skating. That was very nice,” he says. “Calgary is a very beautiful city. It is the best city I know.”