Sheila Edalatpour – Libra Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Ferland Engineering Education and Design Center, Room 255
(207) 581-2375
sheila.edalatpour@maine.edu

Sheila Edalatpour, Ph.D.

Libra Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Education

  • Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Utah, 2016

External Engagements:

  • Energy Auditor, National Iranian Gas Company, 2009 – 2011
  • Maintenance Planning Engineer, National Iranian Gas Company, 2007 – 2009

Teaching Areas:

Mechanical Engineering:

  • MEE 230 – Thermodynamics
  • MEE 486 – Building Energy Modeling
  • MEE 639 – Advanced Radiative Heat Transfer

Research Areas: (More Information)

  • Near- and far-field radiative energy transfer
  • Computational heat transfer
  • Electromagnetic light scattering
  • Thermal energy transport at micro/nanoscale

Honors and Awards:

  • Mel McClure Global Community Impact Award, University of Maine, 2025
  • Libra Associate Professorship, University of Maine, 2023
  • National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2021
  • Faculty Mentor Appreciation Award, University of Maine, 2020
  • Early Career Research Award, College of Engineering, University of Maine, 2019

Principal Sponsors:

  • National Science Foundation
  • Department of Energy
  • University of Maine

Select Publications / Conference Presentations:

  • R. Pouria, D. Cardinal, P. K. Chow, and S. Edalatpour, “Broadband and omni-directional enhancement of emissivity enabled by thermal radiation of Mie resonances,” ACS Photonics, 12(2), pp.666-673, 2025.
  • M. Habibzadeh, M. S. Islam, P. K. Chow, and S. Edalatpour, “Enhancing near-field radiative heat transfer between dissimilar dielectric media using graphene,” ACS Photonics 11, 4101−4110, 2024.
  • S. Zare, R. Pouria, P. K. Chow, T. Tiwald, C. Trip, and S. Edalatpour, “Probing near-field thermal emission of localized surface phonons from silicon carbide nanopillars,” ACS Photonics 10 (2), 401–411, 2023.
  • S. Zare and S. Edalatpour, “The quantum confinement effect on the spectrum of near-field thermal radiation by quantum dots,” Journal of Applied Physics 130, 015108, 2021. (Featured article)
  • S. Zare, C. Tripp, and S. Edalatpour, “Measurement of near-field thermal emission spectra using an internal reflection element,” Physical Review B 100, 235450, 2019.
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “The Thermal Discrete Dipole Approximation (T-DDA) for near-field radiative heat transfer simulations in three-dimensional arbitrary geometries,” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 133, 364-373, 2014.

Professional Activities / Memberships:

  • Associate Editor, Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, December 2024 – present.
  • American Society of Thermal and Fluids Engineers (ASTFE)

Sheila Edalatpour: Research Activities and Profile Summaries

My research interests lie mainly in nanoscale thermal radiation referred to as near-field radiative heat transfer. Near-field thermal radiation exhibits unique properties that can be exploited for various applications in energy harvesting, nanomanufacturing, characterization, and high-resolution imaging. My research in this area is focused on the development and application of numerical methods for modeling near-field thermal radiation in complex micro/nanoscale systems, where analytical approaches cannot be employed. The current application of interest is characterization of radiative properties of man-made nanostructures. My additional research interests include computational heat transfer, high performance computing and electromagnetic wave scattering.
If you have any questions or if you are interested in joining my research group, please send me an email at sheila.edalatpour@maine.edu.

Journal Publications:

  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “Spectral distribution of the far-field signal in near-field thermal spectroscopy,” Nano Letters, in preparation, 2016.
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “Near-field radiative heat transfer between arbitrarily-shaped objects and a surface,“ Physical Review B 94, 045406, 2016.
  • S. Edalatpour, J. DeSutter and M. Francoeur, “Near-field thermal electromagnetic transport: An overview,” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 178, 14-21, 2016.
  • S. Edalatpour, M. Čuma, T. Trueax, R. Backman, and M. Francoeur, “Convergence analysis of the thermal discrete dipole approximation,” Physical Review E 91, 063307, 2015.
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “The Thermal Discrete Dipole Approximation (T-DDA) for near-field radiative heat transfer simulations in three-dimensional arbitrary geometries,” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 133, 364-373, 2014.
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “Size effect on the emissivity of thin films,” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 118, 75-85, 2013.
  • S. Edalatpour, A. Saboonchi, and S. Hassanpour, “Effect of phase transformation latent heat on prediction accuracy of strip laminar cooling,” Journal of Materials Processing Technology 211, 1776-1782, 2011.

Peer-Reviewed Conference Publications:

  • S. Edalatpour, M. Čuma, T. Trueax, R. Backman, and M. Francoeur, “Computational near-field radiative heat transfer: Convergence analysis of the thermal discrete dipole approximation using the exact solution for two spheres,” ICHMT International Symposium on Advances in Computational Heat Transfer, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA, May 25-29, 2015 (Extended Abstract).
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “The thermal discrete dipole approximation for near-field radiative heat transfer modeling between arbitrarily-shaped objects and a surface,” Thirteenth International Conference on Near-Field Optics, Nanophotonics, and Related Techniques, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, August 31-September 4, 2014 (Abstract).
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “The Thermal Discrete Dipole Approximation with surface interaction,” 2nd International Workshop on Nano-Micro Thermal Radiation: Energy, Manufacturing, Materials, and Sensing (NanoRad2014), Shanghai, China, June 6-9, 2014 (Extended Abstract).
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “Numerical simulation of near-field thermal radiation using the Thermal Discrete Dipole Approximation,” Electromagnetic and Light Scattering XIV, Lille, France, June 17-21, 2013 (Abstract).
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “Investigation of size effect on the emissivity of thin films,” ASME 2012 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Houston, TX, USA, November 9-15, 2012 (Paper).
  • S. Edalatpour, A. Saboonchi, and S. Hassanpour, “A numerical model for prediction of temperature and phase transformation during hot rolled strip cooling,” International Fluid Dynamics Conference, Shiraz, Iran, October 26-28, 2010 (Paper).

Oral and Poster Presentations:

  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “Near-field thermal radiation interactions between a probe and a surface,” 2nd Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference and 4th International Workshop on Heat Transfer, Las Vegas, NV, USA, April 2-7, 2017 (Oral presentation).
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “Near-field radiation heat transfer between arbitrarily-shaped objects and a surface,” ASME 2016 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, Phoenix, AZ, USA, November 11-17, 2016 (Oral presentation).
  • S. Edalatpour, M.P. Bernardi, J. DeSutter, and M. Francoeur, “Near-field thermal electromagnetic transport,” Electromagnetic & Light Scattering XV 2015, Leipzig, Germany, June 21-26, 2015 (Oral presentation).
    T. Trueax, S. Edalatpour, and M. Francoeur, “Simulating nano-scale radiative heat transfer,” University of Utah’s Undergraduate Research Symposium, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, March 31, 2015 (Poster).
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “The Thermal Discrete Dipole Approximation (T-DDA) for numerical simulation of near-field thermal radiation,” ASME 2013 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, San Diego, CA, USA, November 15-21, 2013 (Oral presentation).
  • S. Edalatpour and M. Francoeur, “The Thermal Discrete Dipole Approximation (T-DDA) for near-field radiative heat, 2013 ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference, Minneapolis, MN, USA, July 14-19, 2013 (Oral presentation).
    A. Majid, S. Edalatpour, M. Francoeur, and M.A. Scarpulla, “Simulations of nanoparticle plasmonic phase change oscillators,” nanoUtah 2011 Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, October 13-14, 2011 (Poster).