Dr. Roberts’ research interests include experimental combustion, propulsion, laser-based optical diagnostics for reacting flows, and carbon capture from point sources.  Of fundamental interest is the complex interaction between the various length and velocity scales in turbulent flows and the chemical kinetics associated with combustion.  His focus is on understanding these interactions in canonical flames, using advanced techniques to measure scalar and vector quantities of interest.  One overarching goal is to mitigate the environmental impact of converting hydrocarbons into heat and work.  Current projects include ammonia combustion at high pressures, the influence of ammonia on soot formation and soot morphology, cryogenic carbon capture, oxidative desulfurization of heavy fuel oils, metal leaching for Li ion battery recycling, and gasification of vacuum residuals.

Dr. Roberts received his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1992.  Prior to this, he worked in the Strategic Defense Initiative Office for two years and worked at NASA Langley on SCRAMJET concepts after defending his dissertation.  He joined NC State University in 1994, where he rose through the academic ranks until leaving for KAUST in 2012.  He was an early member of the Clean Combustion Research Center and became the Director in 2014.  He is an NSF CAREERS and Army Research Office Young Investigator Award recipient, and Fellow of the Combustion Institute.  He has published more than 340 archival journal articles, with an h-index of 55 as of Oct 2024