Andrea Lorena Felicelli earned her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering (ME) in 2019 at the University of Akron, Ohio, and her PhD in ME in 2024 from Purdue, where she is an inaugural postdoctoral commercialization research fellow. During her PhD, she created paint that is the thinnest and lightest among ultrawhite radiative cooling paints, making it highly promising for weight-sensitive applications such as cars, spacecraft, and wearables. The work made a substantial impact, being cited 70+ times since her lead-author paper was published in 2022 in Cell Reports Physical Science. It also garnered attention from more than 600 media outlets worldwide, including U.S. News & World Report, Popular Mechanics, and the front page of the New York Times. It also won the SXSW Innovation Award for Sustainability and was named one of the “Best Inventions of 2023” by Time Magazine. In her current role, she is translating her doctoral research toward commercialization through stakeholder discovery, industry collaboration, and pilot project development. A key goal of her future research is creating sustainable nanocomposites that can achieve multiple performance objectives simultaneously, such as thermal insulation, infrared reflectance, mechanical resilience, and environmental adaptability. Felicelli has volunteered as a mentor with GradTrack, Purdue Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, and the Disability Resource Center. In her future classroom, she will incorporate culturally relevant examples to connect course material to students' experiences and adopt Universal Design for Learning principles to ensure her courses are accessible to students with different learning styles.

Research Interests

Bio-inspired Nanocomposites for Sustainable Energy