Three AAE PhD students receive Bilsland Fellowships
AAE PhD students Andrea Nicolas, Gayathri Shivkumar and Pei Zhang have each received a Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship, which is administered by the Purdue Graduate School.
The Fellowship provides support to outstanding PhD candidates in their final year of doctoral degree completion. The students are nominated and selected by members of the graduate faculty.
About Andrea
Andrea is a 4th year PhD student of Professor Michael Sangid. Her dissertation is titled “Relationships Between Galvanic Driving Force and Strain Energy Density Accumulation.” In her research, she looks at the integrated evolution of corrosion from both a mechanical and chemical point of view, which is very innovative since usually corrosion is separately evaluated from either perspective but never simultaneously from both. She enjoys playing violin and running.
“I am really happy and grateful to be awarded this fellowship because I can continue working in something I really love surrounded by amazing people,” Andrea says. “I am extremely thankful toward AAE, my advisor and my awesome lab mates/classmates for being so supportive and welcoming throughout my studies here at Purdue.”
About Gayathri
Gayathri is a PhD student of Professor Alina Alexeenko. Her dissertation is titled “Coupled Plasma, Fluid and Thermal Modeling of Low-Pressure and Microscale Gas Discharges.” Part of her research focuses on the modeling of hydrogen microwave plasma for the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of graphitic nanopetals, graphene and carbon nanotubes and introduction of a pillar for growth enhancement. She enjoys playing sports and listening to music.
“I feel very honored and humbled to be chosen as a fellowship recipient from a department with many excellent PhD candidates,” Gayathri says. “I also feel motivated to keep up my performance and work hard to improve it. I am extremely grateful to my advisor, Professor Alina Alexeenko, for all her support and guidance.”
About Pei
Pei is a PhD student of Professor Haifeng Wang. Her dissertation is titled “Modeling of Multi-regime Turbulent Combustion: Challenges and Advances.” Her research focuses on extending the traditional single regime combustion models to predict multi-regime combustion, which will ultimately help the design and optimization of combustors. Outside of the classroom and lab, she enjoys watching comedy shows and cooking.
“I am deeply honored to receive the fellowship and very grateful to the department and graduate school for providing the fellowship,” Pei says. “I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Haifeng Wang, for his patient guidance and constant support over the past four years.”