UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Jelena Srebric, the Margaret G. and Frederick H. Kohloss Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering, has been appointed associate dean for research in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. She succeeds Robert M. Briber, who announced his retirement earlier in 2024.
In the role, she supports current and future research at Maryland Engineering, which in 2024 ranked No. 10 among graduate engineering programs at U.S. public universities. Dean Samuel Graham, Jr. called her “an innovative and experienced researcher, a trusted member of the school and university community, and a widely respected practitioner in our field.”
Srebric is an internationally recognized expert on multi-scale modeling of the built environment and its effects on occupant comfort and respiratory health. She directs the Center for Sustainability in the Built Environment (City@UMD), where she manages and supervises about $1.2 million a year in externally funded research.
She knows the role well: during the COVID-19 pandemic she served as interim associate dean for research, helping the Clark School sustain its research through a difficult period. At the same time, she led studies of airborne infection risk in airplanes, buses and classrooms, and of ways to protect singers and musicians during live performances, work that was featured by national media from The New York Times to the Today Show.
Her honors include international membership in the Serbian National Academy of Engineering (2013), fellowship in the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (2018) and the International Building Performance Simulation Association (2019), the Yaglou Award of the International Academy of Indoor Air Sciences (2005), two research awards and four paper awards from ASHRAE, and the 2020 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Innovation.
“Dr. Srebric will be a champion for the innovations our students, faculty, and staff create, and she will help their work develop from bench research into scalable solutions for our society’s greatest challenges,” Graham said.