Ryan Anderson

Ryan Anderson is an Associate Professor in the Chemical & Biological Engineering Department at Montana State University's College of Engineering. His research focuses on heat transfer and fluid flow applications in clean energy systems.

Dr. Anderson's educational background includes a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of British Columbia (2012), a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and B.A. in History from Bucknell University (2007), and post-doctoral research at City College of New York. He also serves as an Affiliate Professor at the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia since 2020.

His primary research interests span across several key areas of thermal engineering and energy systems:

• Heat transfer applications including coupled heat transfer/fluid flow in packed beds
• Supercritical and transcritical phenomena in energy systems
• Phase change materials for thermal energy storage
• Transcritical $$\text{CO}_2$$ ore processing for energy-efficient rock fracturing
• PEM fuel cell engineering with emphasis on water management
• Engineering education research to make engineering more effective and equitable

Dr. Anderson leads the Heat Transfer Lab at Montana State University, which conducts experimental and numerical studies focusing on porous media such as packed beds used in Thermal Energy Storage. His research spans from microscale (pore scale analysis) to macroscale (lab scale analysis). His lab utilizes advanced techniques including magnetic resonance microscopy to non-invasively measure velocity and heat transfer behavior in packed beds.

Among his notable research contributions are:

• Development of radial flow approaches for packed bed thermal energy storage
• Studies on transcritical $$\text{CO}_2$$ processing for rock fracturing in mining applications
• Visualization techniques for water management in PEM fuel cells using synchrotron x-ray radiography
• Analysis of heat transfer in supercritical and near-critical fluids in porous media

Dr. Anderson has received significant research funding including NSF Award 1511045 and DOE Award DE-EE0009384 for his work on thermal energy storage and heat transfer systems. His research has strong industry connections, particularly with Rockburst Technologies for transcritical $$\text{CO}_2$$ ore processing.

As an educator, Dr. Anderson teaches several core chemical engineering courses including:

• ECHM 307: Chem Engin Thermodynamics I
• ECHM 321: Chemical Engineering Fluid Mechanics
• ECHM 411 & 412: Senior Design I & II
• ECHM 443: Unit Operations Lab
• HONR 201: Texts and Critics
• ECHM 490: Undergraduate Research

His engineering education research efforts focus on bringing societal topics into engineering classrooms, peer mentoring, and developing modular experiments for classroom use.