Filip Kokalj was born in Maribor, Slovenia, in 1973. He received his B.Sc. degree in Power Engineering in 1997 and M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering in 2002 and 2006, respectively, from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maribor, Slovenia.
Dr. Filip Kokalj is employed at the University of Maribor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering as assistant professor.
In the past, he worked as an authorized designer and project manager at the private company that produced solid fuel fired steam and hot water boilers and waste-to-energy plants. During that time, he was the head of the project and main designer of first Slovenian municipal solid Waste-to-Energy plant.
Since the year 2000, he is the co-worker at the Laboratory for thermodynamics, combustion and environmental engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. He has many references in experimental and numerical research and design of various boiler sizes. There are numerous references in combustion modelling using computational fluid dynamics, experimental laboratory and pilot scale technology testing, developing waste treatment methods and applying various waste management concepts. He was also the head of performance tests of small wood-fired boilers in terms of efficiency and air emissions for Slovenian national environmental body. He was part time employed for 14 years at local public district heating company as counsellor to the director for research and development, especially in the field of renewable energy and efficient energy utilization projects at application level.
He is author and co-author of more than 500 technical and science papers in the fields of Mechanical and Environmental Engineering. Over 20 papers are original research papers published in high impact international papers. The research work is mostly done with close international collaboration. He is also the co-author of three books and 1 patent. His main research areas are numerical and experimental combustion process research, renewable fuels, combustion air emissions, waste management and circular economy. He is a reviewer for several renewed international journals.
For 15 years he is a member of Slovenian Chamber of Engineers and authorized mechanical engineer for designing, building and supervision for pretentious buildings.