Dave Pearson accepts visiting professorship

UK: Star Refrigeration’s group sustainable development director, Dave Pearson, has been appointed as visiting professor at Edinburgh Napier University.

His three-year visiting tenure at the university’s School of Computing, Engineering and The Built Environment will help educate engineering degree students on heat pumps in an initiative geared towards industry/academia engagement to achieve societal decarbonisation.

Pearson’s tenure follows Star Refrigeration’s longstanding support of the university’s engineering undergraduate programme alongside a number of activities with the university over several years, including a series of guest lectures on industrial heat pumps for district heating and industrial processes.

His role, awarded by The Royal Academy of Engineering, will involve looking at heat pump types and their application, as well as the factors affecting adoption, and will examine future development work to assess how heat pump technology can be improved.

“As we move towards heat decarbonisation, we must prepare the next generation of engineers to create energy infrastructure designed to shift the sector in the right direction quickly enough to achieve net zero,” Parson said following his appointment.

Pearson’s work has been largely focused on the development of industrial scale heat pumps for district heating and industrial business processes. It has included award-winning work on river-source heat pump projects around the world. 

He is a passionate advocate of the technology and regularly advises governments and businesses on the strategic and vital role heat pumps play in delivering a low-carbon economy. He is chair of the Centre for Education Engineering and Development, a knowledge sharing collective between business and academia with over 160 members in Scotland and member of the Scottish Government’s Energy Advisory Board, co-chaired by First Minster Nicola Sturgeon and Professor Sir Jim McDonald, principal of the University of Strathclyde.