Research Bio
Dr. Michael Gollner in an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and a Deb Faculty Fellow. He is broadly interested in fire science problems, utilizing experiments and combustion and fluid dynamics theory to solve problems related to fire spread, material flammability, and smoke transport. Much of his work is focused on applications to wildfires, including their spread through vegetation, ignition of structures in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), transport of embers, fire whirls, and emissions from wildfire smoke.
Dr. Gollner is active in professional society leadership, previously serving as Treasurer and a member of the Board of Directors for the International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF), Chair of the Research Advisory Board of the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) Fire Protection Research Foundation, and as a member of the Management Committee of the International Association for Fire Safety Science. He currently serves as a board member and Secretary of the Western States Section of the Combustion Institute, Associate Editor for the journal Fire Technology and serves on the boards of the Fire Safety Journal and the International Journal of Wildland Fire. He is a principal member of the NFPA Technical Committees on Spaceports and Wildland and Rural Fire Protection. He is also a recipient of the Combustion Institute Tsuji Early Career Research Award, NSF CAREER award, Proulx Early Career Award in Fire Safety Science, and the Fire Protection Research Foundation Medal.
Dr. Gollner received his B.S. (2008), M.S. (2010) and Ph.D. (2012) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego. He was a faculty member in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park from 2012-2019.
Research Expertise and Interest
combustion, fire dynamics, wildland fire, fluid mechanics
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Featured in the Media
A new paper co-authored by Michael Gollner, associate professor of mechanical engineering, examines lessons from catastrophic wildfires that ravaged California. The findings could help residents and communities near forested areas limit damage from future fires.