SFPE Foundation announces 2025 awards for engineering research and fire safety
Iain Hoey
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SFPE announces global award recipients for 2025
The SFPE Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2025 awards, recognising international contributions to fire safety engineering research and practice.
According to the SFPE Foundation, this year’s honourees include researchers from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and China.
Awards will be presented at the SFPE Annual Conference & Expo in Vancouver, Canada, taking place from 21 to 23 October 2025.
Leslie Marshall, Director of the SFPE Foundation, said the selected recipients reflect a wide range of expertise, including fire modelling, experimental testing, human behaviour, and wildfire resilience.
The awards committee includes Sean Donohue, Peter Senez and Maria B. Marks, who will present the awards in person at the October event.
Contributions to engineering modelling and visualisation
The Arthur B. Guise Medal was awarded to Dr Glenn Forney of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), United States.
According to the SFPE Foundation, Dr Forney was selected for his work developing the CFAST and Smokeview tools used in fire modelling and visualisation.
Since 1986, Dr Forney has led computational research at NIST that helped define core tools for fire protection engineering.
CFAST is described as the most widely used zone fire model in the world.
Smokeview, which Dr Forney also developed, is a visualisation program for interpreting simulation data from CFAST and the Fire Dynamics Simulator.
Dr Forney will deliver a keynote address at the October conference titled: “Putting the Smoke into Smokeview: Musings on Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We Might Go.”
Experimental research in fire testing
The Jack Bono Award for Engineering Communication was presented to researchers from Australia and the United Kingdom.
Dr David Morrisset from the University of Queensland, and Dr Jonathan Reep, Ian Ojwang, Dr Rory Hadden and Dr Angus Law from the University of Edinburgh, were honoured for their article in Fire Technology.
According to the SFPE Foundation, their article titled “Repeat Fire Tests of Upholstered Furniture: Variability and Experimental Observations” reported results from 25 repeat fire tests.
The trials measured heat release rate, mass loss rate, and gas emissions from identical upholstered chairs under controlled fire conditions.
The aim of the research was to assess experimental repeatability in furniture-scale calorimetry.
The Foundation said the award is endowed by UL Research Institutes.
Student awards in wildfire and structural engineering
Student Scholar Awards were presented to Mahdis Borhani from the University of Utah and Mohammad Javad Moradi from Carleton University.
According to the SFPE Foundation, Borhani’s work focuses on wildfire resilience in utility planning across the Western Interconnection in the United States.
Her research evaluates how mitigation strategies are implemented by utility providers and identifies barriers to their adoption.
Moradi’s research combines mechanical and fire protection engineering to model structural damage under high temperatures using artificial intelligence.
His work includes predictions of fire performance for concrete-filled steel tubes and residual properties of fibre-reinforced concrete.
Both students are pursuing PhD degrees in North America.
Behaviour and tunnel dynamics research recognised
Two further awards recognised work in behavioural science and tunnel safety.
Leo Willem Menzemer, a PhD student at Lund University and DBI, was presented the Dr. Guylène Proulx, OC Scholarship for research into memory retention and evacuation.
His project investigates how spatial knowledge develops and is retained, with the goal of informing code-based training intervals.
His advisor, Dr Enrico Ronchi, is also recognised for supporting the work.
Dia Luan, a PhD student at Central South University in China, received the Frederick W. Mowrer Global Scholar Award.
Her research focuses on airflow, smoke control and tunnel fire dynamics during heavy rainfall.
Her advisor said the work “offers practical solutions that enhance disaster prevention and emergency response capabilities in tunnel projects.”
SFPE Foundation announces 2025 awards for engineering research and fire safety: Summary
The SFPE Foundation has released its list of 2025 award recipients.
Dr Glenn Forney of NIST received the Arthur B. Guise Medal for modelling and visualisation software.
The Jack Bono Award was presented to researchers from Queensland and Edinburgh for furniture-scale fire testing research.
Student Scholar Awards were awarded to Mahdis Borhani and Mohammad Javad Moradi.
Borhani studies wildfire resilience in US utility planning.
Moradi applies AI to fire and structural engineering research.
Leo Willem Menzemer received the Proulx Scholarship for work on spatial memory in evacuations.
Dia Luan was awarded the Mowrer Global Scholar Award for tunnel fire research.
Awards will be presented at the SFPE Annual Conference in Vancouver from 21 to 23 October 2025.
The SFPE Foundation is based in the United States.
