Civil Engineering Ph.D. student Satya Sundar Patra has received a 2023-2024 ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers) Grant-in-Aid Award, a $10,000 award given to outstanding graduate students conducting research in High Performance Buildings or HVAC fields. The evaluation criteria for this prestigious award include academic performance, the quality and significance of the student's research, and the likelihood of future involvement within ASHRAE.

Under the guidance of his advisor, Associate Professor Brandon E. Boor, Satya is working on his thesis titled, "Indoor particle dynamics in residential buildings: from a few nanometers to tens of micrometers." The primary objective of his thesis is to provide novel insights into the fate and sources of particles spanning nearly four orders of magnitude in size within residential and office buildings, ultimately contributing significantly to the development of clean indoor environments. This research is critical, as humans spend nearly 90% of their time indoors. To achieve this goal, Satya is utilizing state-of-the-art aerosol instrumentation to conduct real-time measurements of particles down to the molecular scale, investigating the impact of building-related factors and human activities on particle dynamics, and assessing human exposure to these particles while identifying potential health risks associated with them.