Klausner is an MSU Foundation Professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State University. He was recognized for his fundamental contributions through experimentations and visualization of boiling and HDH desalination, and thermo-chemical conversion processes. Additionally, the Fellow citation from ASTFE noted his exemplary service to the heat transfer community as chair of the ASME Heat Transfer Division and his work in program development for the DoE ARPA-E initiative.
He has made substantial fundamental contributions to understanding the dynamics of vapor bubble incipience, growth, and detachment in boiling heat transfer systems. He has made many applied research contributions in high temperature solar thermochemical storage, waste heat and solar driven desalination, and high heat flux phase-change heat transfer.
Klausner has authored more than 150 refereed publications. His theoretical work on bubble dynamics is included in the Handbook of Heat Transfer. He is the author of 10 patents and four provisional patents.
He serves on the board of directors of ASTFE (2018-present) and the International Titanium Association Foundation (2016-present), and was formerly chair of the ASME Heat Transfer Division (2011-2012). He served as a program director at the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) for more than three years. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering, and received the ASME Heat Transfer Division 75th Anniversary Award.
Klausner joined MSU in January 2016. He is the former Newton C. Ebaugh Professorship in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida (1989-2015). He received a bachelor’s degree in marine systems engineering from the United States Merchant Marine Academy (1984) and master’s (1986) and Ph.D. (1989) degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.