People & Contact

Contact

PI:

Amy Marconnet

Birck Nanotechnology Center: Office # 2272

1205 Mitch Daniels Blvd.

West Lafayette, IN 47907-2057

marconnet[at]purdue.edu

 

 

 

Professor Amy Marconnet is an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and associate professor of Materials Engineering (by Courtesy), as well as a Perry Academic Excellence Scholar, at Purdue University. She received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2007, and an M.S. and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Her dissertation focused on thermal phenomena in nanostructured materials. She then worked briefly as a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before joining the faculty at Purdue University in August 2013. Her work has won outstanding paper awards at ITherm 2012, InterPACK 2017, ITherm 2019, and ITherm 2023. In 2017, she won the Woman in Engineering Award from the ASME Electronics & Photonics Packaging Division (EPPD). In 2020, she won the Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer and the Outstanding Graduate Student Mentor from the Official Mechanical Engineering Graduate Association (OMEGA) and the College of Engineering. She recently won a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers and conducted research at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in the 2021-22 academic year.
 
 

Graduate Students:

Meghavin Bhatasana

Meghavin Bhatasana

Meghavin received his B.S in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in 2019. He is currently a PhD student in mechanical engineering researching the use of phase change materials for system and die level thermal management of electronics. Besides research, he enjoys indoor bouldering and playing video games. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghavin/

Aalok Gaitonde 

Aalok develops thermal metrology techniques for advanced semiconductor packaging. Specifically, one of his projects involves developing a novel method to measure the thermal diffusivity of thin heat spreading materials which may have in-plane anisotropy, while another project the aims to develop a metrology tool for the characterization of deeply buried low thermal resistance interfaces found in semiconductor and heterogenous packaging technologies. His research is supported by the Cooling Technologies Research Center (CTRC) and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC). Prior to enrolling in the PhD program, he spent 4 years working with the R&D wing of 3D Systems, developing thermal systems and architecture of Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) additive manufacturing platforms. Aalok completed his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in Fall 2016, where his thesis work with Dr. Marconnet included the measurement of thermal conductivity of packed granular beds under the effect of shear and interrogation of the thermal transport and interfaces in lithium-ion batteries.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aalokgaitonde/

 
 

Ritwik Kulkarni 

Ritwik received his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur (IITJ) in 2019 and an M.S. from Texas A&M University in 2021. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Purdue. His undergraduate research work comprises improving water potability in portable ceramic water filters, and his Masters' thesis details the development of correlations for jet impingement of racetrack-shaped jets in the leading edge of gas turbine blades. Under Prof. Marconnet and Prof. Christov, he is currently working on developing in-situ strategies for TIM pumpout and understanding heat transfer for suspensions in Couette Cell. Besides research, Ritwik loves to go for trails, cook new recipes and experiment with beatbox patterns. 
 
 

Pranay Praveen Nagrani

Pranay works under the guidance of Prof. Amy Marconnet and Prof. Ivan Christov and his research concerns analyzing and mitigation of thermal interface material (TIM) pump-out degradation phenomenon to improve the reliability of electronic packages. Further, he works on CFD modeling of multiphase flow in porous media in micro-gravity conditions. He received his MSME degree from Purdue University in 2021 during which his research concerned studying particle migration under the influence of shear and thermal gradients and its application to mitigate junction level temperature rise. He received his B.Tech degree from National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) in 2015.

MS Thesis (2021): TWO FLUID MODELING OF HEAT TRANSFER IN FLOWS OF DENSE SUSPENSIONS

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pranaynagrani/

Angie Rojas

Angie Daniela Rojas Cardenas

Angie received her B.S in Chemical Engineering from Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL) in 2022. As an undergraduate she won the Undergraduate Research Experience Purdue-Colombia scholarship (UREP-C) spring 2021 to work at Davis Research Group. She conducted research focusing on elastic modulus assessment of particle-reinforced elastomers and visualization stresses on a confinement elastomer using mechanophores. She is currently pursuing a M.S. in the Materials engineering department at Purdue University.

Angie’s research focuses on enhancing the thermal conductivity in bulk polymer composites. She is working under the guidance of Prof. Amy Marconnet (ME) and Prof. Chelsea Davis (MSE) in a Cooling Technologies Research Center (CTRC) project.
 
Shanmukhi Sripada

Shanmukhi Sripada

Shanmukhi Sripada received her Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT Delhi) in 2021. After finishing her undergraduate education, she worked for a brief period as a software engineering associate at Dassault Systemes Solutions Lab, Bengaluru, India. She joined Purdue University in Fall 2022 and is currently working on projects under the supervision of Dr Amy Marconnet, Dr Justin Weibel, and Dr Chelsea Davis. On the experimental side, she is currently working on developing thermally conducting and electrically insulating polymers for their application in motors, generators, power electronics, and power distribution. On the computational side, she is working on developing a Physics Informed Neural Networks Model for the thermal characterization of materials. She has been awarded the Adelberg Fellowship from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Besides research, she is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and loves reading books and solving puzzles.

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanmukhisripada/

Piyush Tripathi

Piyush graduated with a B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from KNIT, Sultanpur in 2015. Later, he worked at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for more than a year before returning to pursue his Masters degree at the IISc, Bangalore. After completing his M.Tech degree in 2020, he continued his research work on supercritical water while serving as a project assistant at IISc. Subsequently, he joined the MTEC lab as a PhD student in the spring 2022. At present, he is working on the Phase Change Materials (PCM) for an efficient cooling solution of the high heat flux devices.

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piyush-tripathi-646b8a18a/

Zixin Xiong

Zixin received her B.S in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in May 2019. She was a master student in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue in Prof. Xiulin Ruan’s group. Her MS thesis focuses on tunable thermal conductivity of compressible graphene-based nano-foam for thermal switches. She joined MTEC in 2021 as a PhD student co-advised by Prof. Marconnet and Prof. Ruan. She is continuing to work on thermal switch as part of her PhD research work.

MS Thesis (2021): Dynamic thermal transport in graphene-based compressible foams

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zixin-xiong/

Undergraduate Assistants:

Wyatt Gay

Wyatt Gay (Spring 2023 - present)

Wyatt is a Sophomore pursuing a BS in Mechanical engineering. He spent last summer as an electrical engineering intern at Stellantis, where he will return this coming spring.  He is presently involved with Purdue Sports Analytics and the ARC Robotics Dog Copter Team. His research focuses on the production of copper based thermal interfacing materials and the relation ship between particle size and ratio to the effectiveness of the TIMs.

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wyatt-gay/

Nolan Gronowski

Nolan Gronowski (Summer 2023 - present)

Nolan is a junior at Purdue University pursuing his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He has previous experience in medical data processing with Optum and is currently working on a project that would seek to improve the lifespan of thermal interface materials for high performance computing. At Purdue, he is involved in the All-Community & Campus Chorale as well as the International Honor Society for Mechanical Engineers.

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolan-gronowski-570578225/

Alumni:

Ph.D Students

Albraa Alsaati

Albraa Alsaati (MS 2016 - 2018; PhD 2018 - 2022)

Albraa obtained his B.S degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of British Columbia (UBC) in 2012. Prior joining Purdue, his research was focused on Solar Water Desalination using Humidification-Dehumidification process.  Albraa also worked for three years for Shell J.V. During his time at Shell J.V, he has been involved in various projects optimizing energy efficiency for Petrochemical processes. Albraa Joined MTEC group in Spring 2016 as MS student. His research is focused on developing and improving material characterization techniques for energy applications.

MS Thesis (2018): Heat and Mass Transfer Analysis for Membrane Distillation

PhD Dissertation (2022): Thermofluidic Impacts of Geometrical Confinement on Pool Boiling: Enabling Extremely Compact Two-phase Thermal Management Technologies through Mechanistic-based Understandings and Predictions

Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission Graduate Fellowship (2016-2018 and 2018-2022).

Albraa graduated with a PhD in ME in May 2021 and joined Intel Corporation.

LinkedIN

Aaditya Candadai

Aaditya Candadai (2017 - 2021)

Aaditya completed his B.E. (Hons.) in Mechanical Engineering from BITS Pilani, India in 2015. His undergraduate research work was based on the performance analysis of a solar thermoelectric generator that employed spectrally selective absorber coatings. At Purdue, he has earned an MS degree (Aug 2017) with Prof. Tim Fisher's group and worked on roll-to-roll manufacturing and characterization techniques of graphene on copper, as well as heat transfer modeling of nanowire networks. He is currently working on his PhD under the guidance of Prof. Marconnet and Prof. Weibel on thermal characterization of flexible high thermal conductivity polymer fabrics for potential applications in heat spreading and wearable electronics.

PhD Dissertation (2021): THERMAL METROLOGY AND CHARACTERIZATION OF HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY POLYMER FIBERS AND FABRICS

Aaditya graduated with a PhD in ME in May 2021 and is a  Packaging R&D Engineer at Intel Corporation.

 

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David Gonzalez Cuadrado

David Gonzalez Cuardrado (2016-2018)

David worked jointly between Prof Guillermo Paniagua's group and the MTEC lab on projects related to inverse metrology for thermal transport in electronics packaging and aerospace applications.

PhD Dissertation (2018): 3D Inverse Heat Transfer Methodologies for Microelectronic and Gas Turbine Applications

David graduated with his PhD in ME in Dec 2018.

Jaesik Hahn (2015 - 2018)

Co-advised by Dr. Tahira Reid at the REID lab, Jaesik studyied the effects of heat on human hair. The scope of the study ranged across thermal characterization of hair fibers under various humidity levels, heat transfer modeling between flat irons and hair bundles, and  predictive modeling of styling efficacy and heat damage of hair induced by using flat irons.

PhD Dissertation (2018): How Heat Affects Human Hair: Thermal Characterization and Predictive Modeling of Flat Ironing Results

 

Jaesik graduated with his PhD in ME in May 2018 and joined Cymer.

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Rajath Kantharaj

Rajath Kantharaj (2016 - 2021)

Rajath completed his B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering at BITS Pilani, India in 2016. He completed a summer internship at Purdue in summer 2015 and a Bachelor’s thesis during Spring 2016, jointly working with Prof. Tim Fisher and Prof. Amy Marconnet on thermal transport in granular media. Currently, his PhD research work is focused on application and performance optimization of particle laden polymeric type thermal interface materials (TIMs). In the past, he has worked on lithium-ion battery thermal characterization, and microstructure-thermal modeling of packed graphite particle bed, and characterization of graphite-epoxy composites with applications in electronics thermal management.

S.N. Bose Scholars - Summer 2015

PhD Dissertation (2021): COMBINED EXPERIMENTAL-NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF MICROSTRUCTURE AND THERMAL CONDUCTION IN SQUEEZED THERMAL INTERFACE MATERIALS

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Patrick Krane

Patrick Krane  (2017 - 2022)

Patrick received a B.S in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in May 2017.  He joined the MTEC lab in Fall 2017 and is has worked with using inverse heat transfer methods for electronics applications. He is now working with the Center for High Performance Buildings on using metal hydrides for energy storage in residential heating and cooling systems.
 
Kohr Graduate Fellowship 2017-2018
Winkelman Fellowship 2017-2019
 

Patrick graduated with his PhD in May 2022 and joined Carrier.

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Collier Miers

Collier Miers (MS 2013 - 2015; PhD 2015-2019)

Collier Miers received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012 and an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Purdue University in 2015 and 2019, respectively. His research focused on improving metrology techniques for characterization of thermoelectric materials and development of phase change material heat sinks for passive thermal management.

MS Thesis (2015): Towards High-Throughput, Simultaneous Characterization of Thermal and Thermoelectric Properties

PhD Dissertation (2019): Thermal Metrology for Waste Heat Systems: Thermoelectrics to Phase Change Materials

Helen and John Lozar Fellowship 2013-2015

Collier graduated with his PhD in ME in May 2019 and joined Jet Propulsion Lab.

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Yifan Wu

Yifan Wu

Yifan received his B.S in Materials Science an Engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University in July 2018. From Aug 2018, he started pursuing a PhD degree working in Prof. Handwerker’s group in the School of Materials Engineering at Purdue University. His research work involves the alloy design and characterization of Sn-Bi solder alloys as well as the investigation of using Ga-based liquid metal as thermal interface materials (TIMs). In Mar 2022 he joined MTEC and started to be co-advised by Prof. Marconnet and Prof. Handwerker.

 

Yuqiang Zeng (2013 - 2018)

Yuqiang obtained his B.S. degree from the School of Energy and Power Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2013. His undergraduate research focused on numerical studies of crystal purification processes. He conducted research on phonon transport phenomena in nanostructured material and its application to thermoelectrics.

PhD Dissertation(2018): Tuning Thermal Transport in Thin Films

Yuqiang graduated with his PhD in ME in Aug 2018 and is currently a postdoctoral associate at Lawrence Berkeley Labs.

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Thesis M.S. Students

Brian Fu

Brian Fu ( - 2018)

Brian was a master’s student at Purdue University joingly between the MTEC lab and Prof. Tim Fisher's lab.

Brian graduated with his MS ME in summer 2018 and is working at Sandia National Labs.

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Jiahong Fu  (Spring 2015 - Fall 2016)

Jiahong completed his Masters degree in the Mechanical Engineering department at Purdue University in Fall 2016. Jiahong obtained his B.S in Material Engineering from School of Power and Mechanical Engineering at Wuhan University in 2014. His undergraduate research ranged from Reheat Cracking Sensitivity Analysis of Low-Alloy Steel in Welding Application, to Fabrication of Nickel-based Capillary Wick by Powder Metallurgy for Novel Loop Heat Pipe.

His work in the MTEC lab included Uncertainty Analysis in High Pressure Die Casting Heat Transfer Model in collaboration with Prof. Matt Krane

MS Thesis (2016): Uncertainty quantification on industrial high pressure die casting process

Jiahong graduated with his MS ME in December 2016 and currently works at 3M in Guangzhou, China.

LinkedIn

Aalok Gaitonde

Aalok Gaitonde (MS Summer 2015 - Fall 2016)

Aalok completed his Masters degree in the Mechanical Engineering department at Purdue University in Fall 2016. Aalok started working with Dr. Marconnet in the MTEC Laboratory in the Summer of 2015. After receiving his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pune in 2012, he worked at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, as a Research Assistant, developing experimental techniques to investigate void formations during the solidification of metals and their alloys.
 
His work in the MTEC lab included the measurement of thermal conductivity of packed granular beds under the effect of shear and interrogation of the thermal properties of lithium ion batteries using infrared thermography.
 
 

Aalok graduated with his MS ME in December 2016. He joined the PHD Program at Purdue in 2021 after working at 3D Systems.

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Yash Ganatra

Yash Ganatra (Fall 2014 - Fall 2016)

Yash completed his Masters degree in the Mechanical Engineering department at Purdue University in Fall 2016. He graduated from Vellore Institute of Technology, India majoring in Mechanical Engineering. As an undergraduate, he did research in the simulation of Phase change materials and in Electromagnetic Stirring of Liquid metals by implementing User Defined function (UDF) in FLUENT.

His work in the MTEC lab included investigation of phase change materials for thermal management under the CTRC program.

Personal Webpage: www.sites.google.com/site/yyashganatra/

MS Thesis (2016): Passive thermal management using phase change materials

Yash graduated with his MS ME in December 2016.

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Krishna Korlam

Krishna Korlam ( - Fall 2021)

Krishna is an MS student in Mechanical Engineering working on a project related to heat transfer and acoustics. As an undergrad, he partipated in the Purdue Undergraduate Research Experience (Summer 2019).

Purdue Undergraduate Research Experience - Summer 2019
 
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Prahlad Kulkarni (Fall 2016 - Summer 2018)

Prahlad Kulkarni was a master’s student at Purdue University. He graduated from R V College of Engineering, Bangalore in 2016 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering. As a part of his undergraduate research, he analytically modelled a Sinusoidal forced convective system to enhance surface heat transfer and worked on Fin geometry optimization to maximize efficiency. In the MTEC Lab, he worked on passive thermal management using phase change materials.

MS Thesis (2018): Experimental Investigation of Foam-Phase Change Material Interactions for Thermal Energy Storage

Prahlad graduated with his MS ME in August 2018. He is currently employed at ASM.

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Weizhi Liao

Weizhi Liao (Summer 2020)

Weizhi completed an MS in Mechanical Engineering working on a project related to thermal switching joint with Prof. Xiulin Ruan's lab.

MS Thesis (2020): Variable Thermal Resistor Based on Compressible Foams

Weizhi graduate in Summer 2020 with his MS ME.

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Sven Stellmacher

Sven Stellmacher (visiting scholar, Fall 2022 - Spring 2023)

Sven graduated in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in chemical and process engineering and is currently a master's student at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. His undergraduate research involves rheological analysis of anode pastes for SOFCs. In his master's degree, he focused on thermal and energy process engineering. In September 2022, he joined MTEC to conduct his master's thesis on the determination of local heat generation during charging and discharging of lithium-ion battery cells. In addition to research, he is interested in artistic gymnastics and Roundnet.
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Other Graduate Research Alumni

Anurag Das

Anurag Das (Summer 2014 - Spring 2015)

Anurag completed his Masters degree in the Mechanical Engineering department at Purdue University. He received his B.Tech degree from The Vellore Institute of Technology in Mechanical (Specialization in Energy) Engineering in 2013. His undergraduate research involved studying the properties of torrefied biomass. His MS research focused on the thermo-mechanical characterization of carbon-fiber composites.

Anurag graduated with his MS ME in May 2015 and joined Faurecia.

LinkedIn

Luis Delgado

Luis Delgado (Fall 2018 - Summer 2019)

Luis received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso in December 2016 with the Highest Honors (Summa Cum Laude). Luis joined Purdue in Summer 2018 (Graduate Bridge Program), and works jointly between Prof. Ruan's Group and the MTEC Lab. His current research relates to fabrication and characterization of nanomaterials for energy and electronic thermal management applications. He is a recipient of Purdue’s George Washington Carver Fellowship.

Carver Fellowship

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Bhagyashree Ganore (Fall 2015 - Summer 2017)

Bhagyashree joined Purdue University as a master's student in Fall 2015. She has obtained a B. Tech. Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, India in 2012. Her undergraduate research focused on thermal modeling and optimization of solar paraboloidal dish cooker and the study of its viable industry applications. Bhagyashree has worked for 3 years in the thermal engineering industry and has been a part of diverse projects ranging from fired equipment, waste heat recovery modules to air package products like compressors, heat exchangers, filtration technology and dryers. While at Purdue, she conducted research in the field of measurement and modeling of thermal transport/storage mechanisms in micro/nano scale devices. 

Bhagyashree graduated with her MS in August 2017 and currently works at Intel.

LinkedIn

 

Odysseas Gkionis-Konstantatos

Ph.D. candidate researcher Odysseas, who originated from Greece, is working on optimizing film capacitors at the University of Southern Denmark. Adopting a broad engineering spectrum, part of his research requires thermal characterization of capacitor devices which will be conducted in the MTEC lab. Odysseas owns a five-year integrated master's in Mechanical Engineering and a two-year master's in Mechatronics Engineering with a major in Embedded Systems.

 

Xinyuan Gu (Summer 2017 - Fall 2019)

Xinyuan obtained his B.S degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in 2017. He worked to develop the 3 omega system which used to precisely measure the thermal properties of samples as the start of his research in thermal management.
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Sonia Gupta

Sonia Gupta (Fall 2020 - Spring 2021)

Sonia is an MS student in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering working on a project related to two-phase flow through packed bed reactors under the guidance of Prof. Marconnet and Prof. Christov. She has also worked on a project involving numerical simulation of wave propagation in fluid-structure interaction metamaterials with Prof. Christov and Prof. Semperlotti. She completed her B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, India in 2019. Her undergraduate research internship at IIT Bombay involved computational analysis of slip process at various thermo-mechanical conditions during Friction Stir Welding process. She also did an undergraduate research on comparative evaluation of chemical treatments on the physical and mechanical properties of natural fibers.
 
 

Tsujeng Denny Hu (Fall 2014 - Spring 2016)

Tsujeng Denny Hu received his B.S. degree from National Cheng Kung University. His research project focused on measuring temperature map using Infrared microscopes and processing data to obtain thermal conductivity of different materials

Denny completed his MSME in Spring 2016.

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Prachi Kale

Prachi Kale (Spring 2017 - Spring 2018)

Prachi Kale joined as a graduate student at Purdue University in Spring 2017. She received her Bachelors’ degree from University of Pune, India 2014. As part of her undergraduate thesis, she worked on designing and developing a high efficiency sub-cooled condenser for automobile HVAC systems. Prachi has worked in the thermal engineering industry for 2 years and has been a part of diverse projects ranging from reciprocating air and gas compressors, heat exchangers, filtration technology and dryers. Prior to joining Purdue, she was working as Project Research Assistant in the microfluidics lab on flow over multiple cylinders at low Reynolds number at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Presently she is pursuing research in the field of modeling and measurement of thermal transport/storage mechanisms for passive thermal management in electronics cooling.   

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Swagata Kalve (Summer - Fall 2017)

Swagata joined Purdue University as a Master’s student in Spring 2017. She has obtained a B.Tech.degree from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, India. As a part of her undergraduate thesis, she worked on performance enhancement of a strap manufacturing unit and design of winding machine. Swagata has worked for two and a half year as a heat transfer and fluid dynamics analyst for electronics. She was also instrumental in developing a test rig for measurement of churning losses in rotating gears. She is currently working with Dr. Amy Marconnet on battery thermal management.

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Soon Kyu Lee

Soon Kyu Lee (Summer 2014 - Spring 2015) 

Soon was a masters student at Purdue University. Soon received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University. As an undergraduate researcher and as part of his MS independent study project, Soon focused on electrodeposition of Bismuth Telluride for thermoelectrics.

 

Soon completed his MSME in Fall 2015.

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Amulya Nimmagadda

Amulya Nimmagadda (Spring 2016 - Spring 2017)

Amulya completed her MSME at Purdue University. She joined MTEC in Spring 2016. She received her Bachelors’ degree from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India. As part of her undergraduate thesis, she worked on developing a mathematical model for obtaining temperature excess in electronic chip cooling. She also worked for two years in the new model development of leading two wheeler manufacturer in India. She was instrumental in developing a new design for the engine resulting in the increase in fuel efficiency of the vehicle. Her research in the MTEC lab focused on obtaining thermal properties of various components of Li ion battery. 

Amulya completed her MSME in Spring 2017 and is currently a PhD candidate at UIUC.

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Yexin Sun

Yexin Sun (Summer 2017 - Fall 2019)

Yexin Sun graduated from Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University in Fall 2019. She received B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Oakland University in September 2016. During her undergraduate study, she conducted research project about water management on gas diffusion layers of proton exchange membrane fuel cell for one and half years. Yexin worked with Dr. Amy Marconnet on battery thermal management.

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Kunal Thaker

Kunal Thaker (Spring 2014 - Fall 2018)

Kunal was a BS and MS student at Purdue University working in the MTEC lab for several semesters. He was involved in research focusing on CAD modelling, simulation, obtaining and processing data from IR microscopes to determine some thermal properties of various samples. 

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Zhenhuan Xu  (Fall 2015 - Spring 2016) 

Zhenhuan was a master student at Purdue University. He obtained his B.S. in ME from University of Minnesota. His conducted research on phase change materials in thermal management using COMSOL simulations.

Zhenhuan completed his MSME in Spring 2016. 

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Undergraduate Researchers

Charles Adkins

Charles Adkins (Summer 2020 - Spring 2021)

Charlie is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Last summer, he worked as a student operator at PRIME Labs, the particle accelerator facility on the Purdue campus. He enjoys playing music and reading fantasy novels in his free time.

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Basil Al-Nabhani

Basil Al-Nabhani (Summer 2021)

Basil is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. For Summer 2021 he is working with Professor Marconnet on developing Heterogeneous Surfaces with improved thermal properties. During his free time, he enjoys cooking and going on roadtrips.

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Jack Burke

Jack Burke (Summer 2019)

Jack is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He is working on thermal conductivity of flexible fabrics with Prof. Weibel, Prof. Marconnet, and Aaditya Candadai. He is in the GEARE program and also the Treasurer of Purdue's ASME Chapter.

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow - Summer 2019

Jack is finishing his undergraduate education at Purdue.

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Jaen Chen

Chih-Yi (Jane) Chen (Summer 2021)

Jane is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. She is involved within Purdue’s EPICS Program as a Design Lead in the Children’s Educational Devices team, where she works to develop interactive science displays for the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. For Summer 2021, she is working under Professor Marconnet, Professor Pourpoint, and Louis Villa on the High Temperature Characterization of Metal Hydrides. In her free time, she enjoys exploring the capabilities of Photoshop and playing bass guitar.

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Aidan Crowley (Spring 2023)

Aidan is a senior at Purdue University studying mechanical engineering. He has participated in research involving Li-ion batteries, camera systems for tree measurement applications, and now thermal interface materials at MTEC. In his free time, he enjoys singing with the Purdue Varsity Glee Club and playing board games.

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Kushal Doshi

Kushal Doshi (Summer 2021 - Fall 2021)

Kushal is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University.  For Summer 2021 he is working with Professor Marconnet and Albraa Alsaati to develop heterogeneous surfaces for confined boiling. During his free time, he enjoys playing board games and going on bike rides.

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Fabricio Espinoza

Fabricio Espinoza (Spring - Summer 2018)

Fabricio was a senior in Electrical Engineering Technology at Purdue University when working in the MTEC lab. He is an exchange student from Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (Lima, Perú) majoring Energy Engineering. His research is focused on solar thermal energy storage using phase change materials. 

Fabricio finished his undergraduate education in Peru, before continuing to a graduate program.

LinkedIn

Harris Tariq Fathe

Harris Tariq Fathe (Spring 2020 - Summer 2021; Spring 2022)

Harris was an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Previously he completed an internship in the manufacturing industry and has served as a Suspension and Chassis team member for the Purdue Boiler Robotics Club. He has also assisted Professor Marconnet and Krishna Korlam in conducting experiments to investigate the interactions of Foam-Phase Change Materials for the sake of Thermal Storage. For the Summer 2020 term, he worked under Professor Marconnet to help develop educational tools to explain heat transfer principles to broad audiences. His most recent research experience was assisting Rajath Kantharaj in designing a testing rig to help determine the optimal application of TIM's as well as preparing samples and collecting experimental data for analysis. In the future, he hopes to pursue a MS in Mechanical Engineering with an incline towards heat transfer.

SRC Research Fellow - Spring 2022

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Hannah Gagelin (Spring 2023)

Hannah is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. She is working on the optimization of thermal interface material’s particle features and dispense mechanism for enhanced heat dissipation with Prof. Marconnet . She is in Purdue Mechanical Engineering Ambassadors (PMEA) and also is involved with Society of Women Engineers (SWE).

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Grant Gauthier

Grant Gauthier (Spring - Fall 2020)

Grant is an undergrad in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University.  In the past, he has held internship positions in the aerospace, marine, and medical industries.  This semester he is assisting Professor Marconnet and Rajath Kantharaj with their research on thermal interface materials, and he is hoping to pursue a MS in ME in the spring of 2021 with a focus on heat transfer.

LinkedIn

Xing Ge

 

Xing Ge (Spring 2014)

Xing Ge was an undergraduate at Purdue University majoring in Mechanical Engineering and minoring in Global Engineering. Her research involved designing experimental device for measuring the thermal conductivity of nanofluids. She worked on manufacturing device based on transient hot-wire method.

 

Xing is currently a Durability test engineer at FCA Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

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Jesse Grorud

Jesse Grorud (Spring 2021 - Summer 2021)

Jesse is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He participates in Purdue formula SAE on the Drivetrain subteam and is also a member of the Purdue All-American Marching Band. For Spring 2021, he is working with Professor Marconnet on High Temperature Rheology for Casting Applications. In the future, he hopes to pursue a MS in Mechanical Engineering.
 
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Yu Han

Yu Han (Summer 2014 - Summer 2016)

Yu is passionate about auto racing and heat transfer research area. He spent two years working with Formula SAE team at Purdue to build racing cars. The pedal box design was the main project he accomplished with SAE. All the designs were built in Creo 2 and went through Finite Elements Analyses using Ansys 14.5 workbench. Yu conducted heat transfer related research with Professor Marconnet using the Three Omega method to measure the thermal properties of soft materials. He also assisted several graduate students with other related projects.

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow - Summer 2014
Bottomly Undergraduate Research Fellow - Spring 2016

Yu continued to graduate school at University of Michigan. 

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William Hanson (Spring 2021 - Summer 2021)

William is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. For Spring 2021, he is working with Professor Marconnet on High Temperature Rheology for Casting Applications. 
 
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Debraliz Isaac-Aragones (Summer 2018)

Debraliz is a visiting student from the University of Central Florida (UCF) located in Orlando, Florida. She is visiting Purdue University as part of the 2018 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. Debraliz will be graduating with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering in the Spring of 2019 and will then be pursuing a master’s degree. Her previous research project was part of a collaboration between UCF and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). In the summer of 2017, she spent 10 weeks at DLR conducting research on additively manufactured nickel-based alloys for gas turbine blade applications. During her time at Purdue, her research focus will involve studying thermal conduction in heterogeneous media using an infrared microscope.

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow - Summer 2018

Debraliz completed her BS at UCF before joining Purdue as a PhD candidate.

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Qianru (Sally) Jia

Quianru Jia (Sally) (Spring 2015 - Spring 2017)

Jia worked on experiments involving adapting the angstrom method for use with the IR microscope, as well as working on projects related to flexible nanostructured thermoelectrics.
 
Perry Undergraduate Research Fellow - Spring 2015
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow - Summer 2015
Bottomley Undergraduate Research Fellow - Spring 2017

Qianru Jia is currently a graduate student at University of Texas-Austin.

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Anika Kansky

Anika Kansky (Fall 2020 - Spring 2021)

Anika is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Previously, she spent two summers as an intern at a government lab working on gamma and neutron radiation research. She is currently the president of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers Chain Reaction Team on campus. For the Fall 2020 semester, she is assisting Professor Marconnet and Krishna Korlam with their research on thermal energy storage.  

Anika received her BSME in Spring 2021.

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Claire Lang

Claire Lang (Fall 2014)

Claire graduated from Mechanical Engineering with an interest in energy and system efficiency. She interned for Remy International and Consumers Energy working in natural gas pipeline integrity. Both internships taught her an immense amount, but she was very excited to be diving into a different area to learn something new. She conducted research into a phase change polymers, with nano particles added, to allow for higher heat transfer in semiconductor packages. This is her first research opportunity and she loves learning more about nanotechnology and material properties.

SRC Undergraduate Researcher - Fall 2014

Claire received her BSME in Spring 2016.

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Kevin Lin

Kevin Lin (Fall 2015 - Spring 2015)

Kevin graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Management at Purdue University. His research was on thermal transport in particulate samples and composites. He collaborated  with Prof. Fisher and Ishan on measuring thermal transport in packed particle beds, designing experiments and testing samples.

Kevin graduated from the ME program in Spring 2015. He currently works as a Quality Assurance Engineer at Acro Biotech, Inc.

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Emily Nadler

Emily Nadler (Spring 2019 - Spring 2020)

Emily is an undergraduate in Honors Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. She is working on high thermal conductivity fabrics with Professor Marconnet and Aaditya Candadai. She is interested in human thermoregulation, especially for burn survivors. She hopes to pursue a thermoregulation project through a MS in ME starting in Fall 2020. When she's not studying on working in the lab, you'll probably find her on an ultimate field as President of Purdue Women's Ultimate.

Starkey Prize for Outstanding Senior 2020

Emily graduate from the ME program in Spring 2020. She currently works for Caterpillar.

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Meng Pan (Spring 2014 - Spring 2016)

Meng graduated from Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. His research covered CAD(Solid works) modelling, simulation data acquisition, and assembly of a thermal conductivity measurement fixture for nanomaterials

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow - Summer 2014

Meng graduated with his BSME in Spring 2016.

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Robert Rattray (Summer 2021)

Robert is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University.  He is involved in Purdue’s EPICS Program in the Wolf Park team, which develops displays and animal enclosures for Wolf Park. For summer 2021, he is working under Professor Marconnet, Professor Pourpoint, and Louis Villa on the high-temperature characterization of the thermal properties of metal hydride. In his spare time, he likes experimental linguistics and music theory.

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Javieradrian Ruiz (2016 - 2018)

Adrian graduated from Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. His research focused on cooling cellphone processors with phase change materials (PCMs) via passive thermal management. Adrian was also involved with AIChE and the Minority Engineering Program here at Purdue.

SRC Undergraduate Research Fellow - Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2018

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow - Summer 2016

 

Adrian graduated with his BS Chem Engr in Spring 2018.

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Jackson Santana

Jackson Santana (Fall 2018 - Spring 2019)

Jackson is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He is working on a project related to TIM jointly directed by Professors Marconnet, Morris, and Wassgren.

Jackson graduated with his BS ME in Spring 2019.

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Chad Snyder (Spring 2014)

While in the MTEC lab, Chad worked on a project related to thermal transport measurements using infrared microscopy techniques.

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Alina Stunleanu (Spring 2023)

Alina Stuleanu is pursuing her B.S in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Purdue University. She received a First Time Researcher Fellowship to collaborate on the Thermal Conduction in Advanced Composites for Electronics Packaging project, advised by Prof. Marconnet.

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Jan Sunaryanto

Jan Sunaryanto (Spring 2014 - Fall 2014)

Jan was a senior undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. His research is concentrated on the CAD modelling, measurement technique, simulation and assembly of heat flux measurement fixtures for nanomaterials, as well as a Matlab GUI optimization for PIV processing.

Jan graduated from the ME program in Fall 2015 and is currently working at Engineering INnovation.
 
Shao Jun Tan

Shao Jun Tan (Summer 2020 - Spring 2022)

Shao Jun is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering. For Summer 2020, he is helping Professor Marconnet in developing education tools for heat transfer. He was the battery lead at Purdue Electric Racing and he enjoys building electric cars.
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Michael Woodworth (Spring 2015)

Michasel graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering with minors in Mathematics and Chinese. He worked at Cummins Inc. over two summer internships in a thermal and fluid sciences role and interested in various forms of heat and energy transfer. In Spring 2015, Michael assisted Yash Ganatra and Professor Marconnet in their study of phase change materials from a thermal perspective. He is excited to apply his knowledge in a research capacity for the first time.
 

CTRC Fellow - Spring 2015

Michael completed his BS in ME and Mathematics.

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Zoe

Yun Chi Zoe Yang (Fall 2022 - Summer 2023)

Zoe is pursuing her B.S in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. She has done several research projects regarding thermodynamics and cooling system at Purdue University and Technische Universität Dresden in Germany. She joined MTEC to research confined boiling heat transfer, and the project is co-advised by Prof. Marconnet, Prof. Weibel, and Prof. Warsinger

Zoe completed her BS ME in Summer 2023 and is pursuing graduate studies at UC-Berkeley

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Elaine Yoon

Elaine Yoon (Summer 2020)

Elaine Yoon is an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. She is currently the Structures lead on Purdue Space Program - Liquids and works as a Facility Project Supervisor at the Bechtel Innovation and Design Center. In the future, she hopes to attain an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and pursue a career in Aerospace or tech. 
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Liang Yuchi

Liang Yuchi (Fall 2014 - Spring 2015)

Liang completed her BS Mechanical Engineering in Spring 2015.  She collaborated with Collier Miers on 2D simulation for thermoelectric and electric transverse transport.  She was also involved in the CATIA automation research with CGT department.

Liang graduated from the ME program in Spring 2015 and is currently a graduate student at Penn State.

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Yongjie Zhuang (Spring 2018)

Yongjie Zhuang is a senior at Purdue University. He is working on thermal mapping with infrared microscopy. He spent first 3 years as undergraduate studying Mechanical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. His previous research involved in data processing and gesture recognition based on surface electromyography and inertial measurement unit.
 
Bottomly Undergraduate Research Fellow - Spring 2018

Yongjie continued to graduate school at Purdue.

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Zihao Zhang (Spring 2016 - Fall 2016)

Zihao Zhang was an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He transferred to Purdue from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. He spent two years working with the SAE team at SJTU working on the suspension system of the racing cars. At Purdue, his research focused on temperature mapping of infrared transparent material. 

Zihao graduated with a BSME in Spring 2017.

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