Dr. Tester is a professor of sustainable energy systems in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. He also serves as principal scientist for Cornell’s Earth Source Heat project. Dr. Tester is a Croll Energy Fellow and a Fellow in the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. Prior to his appointment at Cornell in 2009, Dr. Tester was the H.P. Meissner Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he served as Director of MIT's Energy Laboratory (1989-2001) and Director of MIT's School of Chemical Engineering Practice (1980-1989). His research on geothermal and biomass energy extraction and conversion and environmental control technologies has resulted in over 300 scientific publications and 13 co-authored books. Dr. Tester is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and was a member of the IPCC's Working Group on Renewable Energy Sources, and advisory boards of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the American Council of Renewable Energy, and Idaho National Laboratory.
Research Interests
Energy/Resource Related Problems – Thermal-hydraulic processes for geothermal energy extraction in subsurface rock reservoirs - Geothermal reservoir engineering (tracer transport and rock–water interactions in fractured geothermal reservoirs) - Geothermal heat pumps for integrated cooling and heating applications - Deep drilling in hard rock using chemical-assisted hydrothermal jets - Recovery of critical energy materials using supercritical fluid extraction - Thermochemical liquefaction and gasification processing of waste biomass feedstocks – Integrated energy systems analysis of renewable biomass and geothermal including life cycle and technoeconomic assessment
Applied Thermodynamics and Kinetics – Chemical kinetics in supercritical fluids - Molecular simulations of condensed matter - Properties of aqueous organic and electrolyte mixtures for thermal energy storage and power cycle applications - Rock-water interactions in hydrothermal environments - Salt crystallization/dissolution phenomena in supercritical water - Crystallization/dissolution phenomena in supercritical water