Board of Directors

Andrew T. Baker – Vice Chair

Andrew Baker is a Technical Leader on the Kimberly-Clark Global Research and Development team.  He has a degree in Physics from the University of Washington.  His career at Kimberly-Clark started in 2001 where his primary focus has been developing novel absorbent materials, products, and methods for making them. His work in the management of fluid flow contributed to a range of innovations including the development of transdermal drug delivery devices, thermal comfort, and cleaning wipe materials. His current activities include the development and use of mathematical modeling tools and applying them to product and process development efforts.

Azita Ahmadi – Treasurer

Azita Ahmadi is currently the treasurer of InterPore society. She holds a BS, MSc and PhD degree in Mechanics from Bordeaux University in France. After a PostDoc at IFP in Rueil-Malmaison, she joined Arts et Metiers ParisTech as an assistant Professor where she is currently a professor of Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer and a researcher in Bordeaux Institute of Engineering and Mechanics (I2M – CNRS UMR 5295). She has different responsibilities in Arts et Métiers ParisTech namely the Scientific coordinator of Doctoral School in Engineering Sciences in Bordeaux Campus and Head of a Master’s program. Her research activities focus on the study of mass, momentum and energy transfer in porous media for different applications at different scales (pore-scale, local-scale, larger scales) with a special attention to upscaling. Her main research interests include: coupled advection/diffusion/ reaction, upscaling heat transfer in composite materials (one and two-equation models), single and two-phase Darcy & non-Darcy (inertial) flow, active & passive dispersion in porous media, colloid transport & yield stress fluid flow in porous media.

Yongfei Yang – Secretary
Yongfei Yang is a professor, vice dean of School of Petroleum Engineering at China University of Petroleum (East China). He is currently the secretary-general of China InterPore Chapter. He holds a BASc, an MASc, and a PhD, all in petroleum engineering, from the China University of Petroleum (East China). During Sep. 2008 and Aug. 2009, he studied in Heriot-Watt University, Scotland UK as a visiting PhD student. His research interests include theory and applications of fluid flow in porous media, the applications of digital rock and pore network model technology in oil and gas field development etc. He is the associate editor of Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering (JNGSE) and editorial board member of the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering (JPSE). He is also the local committee co-chair of InterPore Annual Conference in Qingdao.

Noushine Shahidzadeh – Communications Officer

Noushine Shahidzadeh is professor at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and group leader at the Institute of Physics /UvA. She is currently member of the board of directors of the Interpore foundation and the scientific board of the Netherlands Institute for conservation, Art and Science (NICAS). Before coming to the Netherlands, she was a (senior) scientist at the Laboratoire Navier/ IFSTTAR a position obtained in a nationwide job competition of the French Ministry for Sustainable Development. She obtained her PhD in 1996 from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris and did a Post-Doc at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. During her career, she coordinated many national and European scientific research projects with industries, government institutions and international partners in both fundamental and applied research. One of the focus areas of Shahidzadeh’s current research are interdisciplinary projects in both fundamental porous media resesearch and research applied to various fields such as the preservation and conservation of our cultural heritage, civil engineering, food engineering, etc….Her areas of expertise cover (i) salt crystallization in bulk, confinement and porous media, (ii) the behaviour of surfactants and emulsions system, and iii) control of wetting and adhesion of surfaces. Prof N. Shahidzadeh is the founder of the successful series of International biannual Workshop: CRYSPOM (Crystallization in Porous Media) , and member of the editorial board of the journal CRYSTALS.

Andrea Peri – Communications Officer

Andrea Peri is a Principal Scientist in Procter & Gamble Research and Development. He has a MS in chemistry at Parma University with focus on physical chemistry and computational modeling. Andrea Joined P&G in 2004 as Scientist working on modeling of hygiene disposable products and transport phenomena in polymers. It is in P&G that he first was introduced to porous media science and since then Andrea has worked on the optimization of absorbent technologies and improvement of models with focus on non-Newtonian flow in swelling porous media. Andrea Currently works on the “Front End Innovation” group and he is responsible of the development of superabsorbent technologies for Baby Diapers and Adult incontinence Products. Member of Interpore Since 2010, Andrea has actively participated to the community as part of the Publicity Committee (until 2012) and to the Honors and Award Committee (since 2016).

Dr. Afshin Goharzadeh is Associate Professor at Khalifa University (KU) in Abu Dhabi (UAE). He holds an MSc in Applied Physics and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University of Le Havre in France (2001). After a Postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology (MPI) in Bremen (Germany), he joined the Petroleum Institute (Currently known as Khalifa University) in Abu Dhabi as Assistant Professor (2005). His research projects have been funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG-German Research Foundation) in MPI and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in KU. He coordinated several international research projects with the University of Maryland and Rice University (USA), Indian Institute of Technology in Madras (INDIA) and Tokyo University in (JAPAN). His research focuses on experimental characterizations of complex fluid flow such as Laminar-Turbulent transition in rotating fluids, multiphase flows, fluid-porous interactions and asphaltene deposition in microfluidic models.