MMAE Seminar Series: Sakaya Suzuki

The Department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering presents a special MMAE seminar featuring guest speaker Sakaya Suzuki, associate professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo (formally Tokyo Institute of Technology), who will present “Exploring Roles of Firebrands in Large Outdoor Fires.” This event is open to the public and will take place on Tuesday, February 10, from 12:45–1:45 p.m. in room 109 of Perlstein Hall.

Abstract

Large outdoor fires are an issue for all over the world. Most notably, wildland fires or wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires have been a danger to Southern Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia for a long time and now Japan is also facing WUI fire problems. Firebrands, or often called embers, small burning objects, are known to be the major cause of the outdoor fire spreads and structure loss. As large outdoor fires spread quicker under stronger wind, it is important to consider the wind effects on ignition by firebrand showers. This talk explains why “firebrand showers” are important, and what’s missing in firebrand research as well as in large outdoor fire research.

Biography

Sakaya Suzuki is an associate professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo (formally Tokyo Institute of Technology) in Japan. After Sayaka obtained her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from University of Tokyo, she worked in NIST for three years as a guest researcher, then joined the National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster in Japan. Suzuki currently works on large outdoor fires, including WUI fires. She is the recipient of the 2017 Young Investigator Award and the 2016 and the 2020 Best Paper Award from the Combustion Society of Japan (CSJ), the 2018 Uchida Young Investigator Award from Japan Association on Fire Safety Engineering, the 2021 IAWF Early Career in Fire Science Award from International Association of Wildland Fire, and the 2025 SJWS Early Career Award from the Society of Japanese Women Scientists. She has been a director of the Board of Directors at CSJ since 2015, an associate editor for Proceedings of the Combustion Institute since 2022, and a chair-elect of the Women in Combustion Advisory Committee in the Combustion Institute.