Fischell Institute Affiliate Fellow Spotlight: Peter Sunderland

Peter Sunderland is a Fischell Institute Affiliate Fellow, Professor, and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Fire Protection Engineering. He also holds affiliations with the Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering Departments.

Sunderland's expertise is in combustion and fire dynamics. His areas of interest are soot formation and oxidation, pyrometry, laminar diffusion flames, microgravity combustion, and fires involving firebrands, refrigerants, hydrogen, highway vehicles, and spacecraft.

Sunderland first got involved with the Fischell Institute after being curious about the Institute’s mission and work. After conversations with several faculty members and the Fischell Foundry, he applied to become an Affiliate Fellow. Sunderland would like to get more involved with medical device research because of the positive effect on people's lives.

Sunderland mentioned that medical devices have many areas of importance in fire protection engineering. For example, there have been many fires involving oxygen-breathing systems. Some surgical procedures require pure oxygen, flammable plastic, and powerful laser beams in the close confines of a patient's throat—improved diagnosis of skin burns and respiratory injuries after fires could aid fire victims.

Sunderland's passion for this field first sparked while taking a fluid mechanics course in college. Since then, he has worked in experimental research with fire dynamics and fluid mechanics. Currently, he is working on a project with students involving analyzing flames that were observed on the International Space Station. Sunderland emphasized that these flames have unusual conditions that cannot be obtained in normal gravity.

"In research, every day is a surprise; every experiment is novel. When students catch that bug, it really excites me," he said.

Sunderland noted that another project he is working on and is incredibly excited about is measuring temperatures of smoldering embers using an off-the-shelf color camera. These embers can fly far from fires and are responsible for half of the houses burned in typical wildland fires.

In the future, Sunderland would like to work on projects related to the intersection of Fire Protection Engineering and Bioengineering. Such as, smoke inhalation, skin burns, and fire toxicology. Outside of work, Sunderland enjoys biking, running, and skiing.

Published January 26, 2023