-- By Raheena Abdurehim

Congratulations Dr. Wesley Boyette for winning "The ASPACC Young Investigator Award" at the12th Asia-Pacific Conference on Combustion held in Fukuoka, Japan on July 4, 2019.

It was awarded for his paper "Laser-Induced Incandescence in Turbulent Non-Premixed Flames at Elevated Pressures" presented at the Eleventh Asia-Pacific Conference on Combustion held at Sydney, Australia in 2017. 

Dr. Boyette is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clean Combustion Research Center (CCRC), KAUST working on a collaborative project with Dr. Assaad Masri of the University of Sydney. He joined CCRC as a Ph.D. candidate in the year 2012 under the guidance of Prof. William Roberts and successfully presented his defense in 2018.

Though most soot research in the Laboratory are performed under conditions that are far from actual combustion devices, Dr. Boyette with the facilities at the CCRC High-Pressure Combustion Lab was able to recreate relevant conditions in a canonical flame. This research project has helped improve our understanding of how turbulence and pressure affect soot production. 

"I feel very honored to have received this award and I'm extremely grateful for all of the opportunity and support that I have received from my co-authors, the CCRC, and KAUST.,"  said Dr. Boyette. 

"My future research plans are to continue working on understanding the production of soot in turbulent flames as well as high-pressure combustion. I will take a position as a Postdoctoral Researcher at The Ohio State University at the end of this year."