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Michael R Moldover (Assoc)
For 50+ years, Dr. Michael Moldover and his collaborators have measured the thermophysical properties of fluids to solve scientific and engineering problems and to improve standards of temperature, pressure, and flow. Moldover invented quasi-spherical cavity resonators; NIST and others used them to make the best-in-the-world measurements of the Boltzmann constant and of the thermodynamic temperature from 7 K to 550 K. For fluids near critical points, Moldover measured the singularities of the heat capacity, equation of state, speed-of-sound, surface tension, shear viscosity, and bulk viscosity. Some of these challenging measurements were conducted in the microgravity environment provided by the Space Shuttle. Moldover demonstrated the ubiquity of critical-point wetting. He stimulated a 100-fold improvement in the accuracy of fundamental-physics-based calculations of the thermophysical properties of helium; now, the calculated values are used to calibrate instruments that measure such properties. Under Moldover's leadership, NIST's Fluid Metrology Group has measured the thermophysical properties of replacements for ozone-layer-damaging refrigerants and the properties of reactive gases used in semiconductor processing. Now, the Group is improving standards for calibrating flow meters, measuring the carbon dioxide emitted by coal-burning power plants, and accurately measuring the flow of hydrogen into next-generation automobiles when they are refueled.
Dr. Moldover is a NIST Fellow and a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Acoustical Society of America. He received the Touloukian Award from the ASME, the Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Silver Medal from the Acoustical Society of America and numerous awards from NIST and the US Department of Commerce.