Professor P. Ole Fanger: Biographical Sketch
Dr. P. Ole Fanger is Professor and
Director of the Centre for Indoor Environment and Energy at the Technical
University of Denmark. His research was initiated and founded at Kansas State
University during 1966-67, and he has since worked for more than 30 years in
research on thermal comfort, indoor air quality and utilization of energy in
buildings.
Engineering
and Scientific Contributions
Dr. Fanger and his associates
established the models to predict thermal comfort, draft risk, radiant
asymmetry, indoor air quality and ventilation requirements, used as
international and national standards. He introduced the indices for thermal
comfort (PMV/PPD) and new sensory units for perceived air quality, analogous to
similar units for light and sound. He established the significance of enthalpy
for perceived air quality and identified a significant impact of indoor air
quality on human productivity and the Sick Building Syndrome. He published more
than 300 papers and several books. His doctoral thesis "Thermal
Comfort" has been reprinted several times, e.g., by McGraw Hill Book
Company, and has sold 13,000 copies. He has given more than 200 keynote and
other invited lectures in 40 countries.
Awards and
International Recognition
Dr. Fanger, a Fellow of both ASHRAE and CIBSE, has received numerous
international awards for his scientific work. In 1992, he received the F. Paul
Anderson Medal, the highest award of the American engineering society, ASHRAE,
as the first non-American recipient.
In 1990, he won the Hall-Thermotank Gold
Medal, the highest award of the British Institute of Refrigeration for the most
significant global contribution to refrigeration and air-conditioning in 1989.
In 1989, he received the Jubilee Award of
the Stockholm Building Society and the Napier Shaw Medal of Research from the
British Engineering Society CIBSE. In 1984, he was the first recipient of
ASHRAE's International Award and in 1982 was the first non-American recipient of
ASHRAE's Holladay Distinguished Fellow Award. In 1982 he received the Nordic
SCANVAC Award.
Memberships in International
Organizations
Dr. Fanger is an
honorary member of the following societies: the French engineering society
AICVF (1990), the Italian engineering society AICARR (1989), the Royal Belgian
engineering society ATIC (1988), the Russian engineering society ABOK (1991),
the Hungarian Society for Building Science ETE
(1993), the Danish society DANVAK (1995), the British Rumford Club
(1996), and the Slovenian engineering society SITHOK (2000).
In 1994, he was awarded membership of the Royal Academy of Engineering
in Great Britain, and of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Building
Science, and he received the Honorary Medal of the Finnish Engineering Society
SULVI. In 1996, he received the Kann Rasmussen Award, the highest engineering
prize in Denmark, the Honorary Gold Medal of the Polish engineering society,
PZITS, and the Hermann Rietschel Honorary Plaque of the German Heating and Air-Conditioning
Industry.
In 1997, he was elected Fellow and received
the John E. Worth Silver Medal of the Royal Society of Health in Great Britain.
He also received the Hermann Rietschel Honorary Gold Medal which is the highest
award of the German Engineering Society VDI-TGA. In 1998, he was elected
Honorary Fellow of the British Engineering Society, CIBSE and in 1999 he
became, as the first foreigner, an Honorary Member of the China Committee of
HVAC.
Academic Positions of Leadership
Since
1984, Dr. Fanger has been President of SCANVAC, the Federation of Scandinavian
HVAC associations, comprising nearly 20,000 engineers. In 1978 he was President
of the first International INDOOR AIR Conference, and in 1985, he was President
of the first World Congress on Heating, Ventilating and Air Con–ditioning,
CLIMA 2000, in Copenhagen.
In 1990, he initiated Indoor Air, the
first international scientific journal on indoor air quality and climate and
has since chaired the Editorial Board. Since 1990, he has been a Board member
of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate and in 1996 he
was elected President of the International Academy of Indoor Air Sciences.
In 1998, he received a Danish Government
grant to establish a new Engineering Research Center for Indoor Environment and
Energy at the Technical University of Denmark. Dr. Fanger became the first
Director of the Center, and the total grant for the first five-year period is
55 million DKK. ■
pa = pressure of water vapor in
ambient air in mmHg