Dr. Phil Ligrani is currently the Oliver L. Parks Endowed Chair, and Director of Graduate Programs at Parks College of Saint Louis University. His previous academic position was as the Donald Schultz Professor of Turbomachinery in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. There, from 2006 to 2009, he was also Director of Oxford University’s Rolls-Royce UTC (University Technology Centre) in Heat Transfer and Aerodynamics. As of January 2012, Dr. Ligrani is author or co-author of more than 140 publications in archival journals, 7 book chapters, as well as approximately 92 conference publications and presentations. From 1995 to 2011, he also presented approximately 74 lectures at different institutions and establishments, including many invited lectures.

Dr. Ligrani's general research areas include convective heat transfer, laminar, turbulent and transitional flows, micro-scale flow and heat transfer, turbomachinery flows, and experimental techniques. Specific research projects focus on gas turbine heat transfer and cooling, film cooling, internal cooling, surface heat transfer augmentation, transonic flows, aerodynamic losses in turbines, effects of surface roughness, electronics cooling, micro-scale heat transfer and flow phenomena, micro-scale and miniature pump flows, protein laden flows, bio-medical particle-laden flows, and general heat transfer topics including mixed convection, conduction heat transfer, and two-phase flows. Interests also include topics in applied analytic chemistry, including Continuous SPLITT Fractionation.