Savannah Wessies (Fed)

Savannah Wessies is a mechanical engineer in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fire group in the Engineering Lab's Fire Research Division. Prior to joining NIST, she received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin where she was a member of the UT Fire Research Group. Her work focused on the characterization of ignition of WUI fuels and the heat transfer from firebrands (burning pieces of material produced during wildland fires).  After completing her graduate work, she started at NIST as a NRC postdoctoral associate. During her postdoc, Wessies continued to focus on the characterization of firebrand heat transfer. Through bench-scale experiments, research was conducted to quantify the convective heat transfer from firebrands. Other experimental work characterized the net heat flux from firebrands to substrates under different environmental conditions. Currently, Savannah's research focuses on the quantification of firebrand burning rates and substrate ignition by firebrands and firebrand piles.