Doug has interests and expertise in a number of areas related to industrial refrigeration systems that include system safety, optimization, assessment of design alternatives, conceptual design, energy conservation measures, system modeling, and field evaluation. As the founding director of the IRC, he leads the IRC's activities in the areas of research, knowledge transfer, and technical assistance for IRC members.

In addition to directing the IRC, Doug is a Professor in the College of Engineering with appointments in the Department of Engineering Professional Development (EPD) and Mechanical Engineering. Through EPD, he has developed an internationally-recognized series of ammonia refrigeration education programs. The ammonia programs provide attendees valuable information they can take back to their jobs for immediate application to improve the safety, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of refrigeration systems. He has also led the development of a Process Safety Management "Best Practices" series of courses that provide state-of-the-art information on effectively managing refrigeration system safety.

He is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Wisconsin, the immediate past chairman of ASHRAE's SSPC Standard 15 (Safety Standard for Refrigeration Systems), past chairman of ASHRAE Technical Committee 6.9 (Thermal Storage) and past vice-chair of ASHRAE GPC-2 - Engineering Analysis of Experimental Data. He is a member of commission D1 (Refrigerated Storage) at the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) and the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration (IIAR).

Todd has been at the IRC since 1997. All of his degrees are in mechanical engineering. Todd has extensive experience in modeling and analysis of industrial refrigeration systems with a focus on economics of energy efficiency measures . He is also interested in refrigeration load calculation, refrigeration system component modeling, accumulator design and the two-phase flow are some of his special interests in industrial refrigeration.

Todd is a member of ASHRAE and IIAR.

Todd has been involved in many site visits, and research including:

• Plant air balance issues and infiltration
• Safety relief vent piping analysis
• Applications of variable frequency drives (VFDs) to industrial refrigeration
• Desiccant dehumidification in refrigerated warehouse docks
• Effect of refrigerated warehouse dock conditions on total refrigeration system load
• Two-phase flow analysis of vertical suction risers in liquid overfeed evaporators
• Liquid-refrigerant droplet trajectories for design of both vertical- and horizontal accumulators

Marc Claas is currently an Associate Researcher with the Industrial Refrigeration Consortium and has been involved in industrial refrigeration since 2009. His interests include refrigeration system maintenance requirements, criteria for safe system operation, troubleshooting systems for safe and efficient operation, regulatory compliance in refrigeration systems, and emerging cooling technologies.

His teaching experience includes online operator training programs, and his field experience includes PSM related activities such as PSM audits and PHAs. He also has experience investigating energy efficiency and other operational opportunities.

Mr. Claas holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from UW-Platteville and Master’s of Mechanical Engineering in Thermal Science from U.W. Madison. He is an active member of IIAR.