FACULTY, Ph.D. STUDENTS AND STAFF

FACULTY RESEARCH

Dr. Michael Ohadi

Director, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and CEEE Founding Faculty Member

Dr. Ohadi is a CEEE founding faculty member and founder of the Advanced Heat Exchangers and Process Intensification Consortium. He is internationally recognized for his research in heat and mass transfer and smart energy systems . He is the inventor/co-inventor of eight issued U.S. patents and has published more than 150 refereed technical publications. Dr. Ohadi has actively participated in promoting the support for fostering technological innovation and entrepreneurship. In 2002, he was featured in Washington Post for his efforts involving innovation and technology transfer. From 2003 to 2010 he was on leave assignment to the Petroleum Institute (Abu Dhabi) where served as Director of Mechanical Engineering (2003-2006) and Provost and Acting President (2006 to 2010). He is a fellow member of both ASME and ASHRAE and has won numerous awards from both societies.

Dr. Amir Shooshtari

Research Associate Professor

Amir H. Shooshtari is an Associate Research Professor in the Advanced Heat Exchangers and Process Intensification Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his Ph.D. in 2004 in Mechanical Engineering. Since 2005, he has been a member of research faculty at the University of Maryland. His research interests include design and development of advanced thermofluid processes, electronic cooling, two-phase flow and fluid flow in porous media. Dr. Shooshtari is the author or co-author of over 20 publications in international journals and conferences. He is a member of ASHARE and ASME. He is recipient of ASHRAE Grant-in-aid Fellowship (2003–2004) and ASHRAE National Capital Chapter Scholarship Award (2003).

Dr. Ratnesh Tiwari

Assistant Research Professor

Dr. Ratnesh Tiwari received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Maryland in 2015. He received his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, India in 2006. Prior to joining the University of Maryland, Dr. Tiwari has worked in the process and oil and gas industry for more than six years in the area of Heat Exchanger design and process development. He has extensive experience of designing experimental loops related to thermo fluidic systems, microchannel heat exchangers and micro reactor design and building energy modeling. He is currently involved in design and development of low cost microchannel heat exchangers for industrial system. He is also working on techno economic analysis and market analysis of the ongoing research projects.

Dr. Andres Sarmiento

Postdoctoral Faculty Research Associate

Dr. Andres Sarmiento is a Postdoctoral Faculty Research Associate in the Advanced Heat Exchangers and Process Intensification Lab at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park. He received his Ph. D and Master’s in 2020 and 2016, respectively, in Mechanical Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. He received his undergraduate degree from the Salesian Polytechnic University, Ecuador in 2013. Before joining UMD he worked on the development of novel HX assisted by two-phase thermosyphons and compact heat exchangers for the oil and gas industry. Also, he worked as a research engineer for the National Institute for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (INER) focused on solar and wind energy assessment. His research interests include the design and development of novel HX, electronics cooling, single and two-phase flow for process intensification, renewable energies, and energy efficiency.

Dr. Roxana Family

Postdoctoral Faculty Research Associate

Dr. Roxana Family received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Ozyegin University in Turkey and her Bachelor and Master of Science in Materials Engineering from Iran. She got her second Bachelor of Art in English Language Interpretation and Translation from Iran too. She worked in Shahed University Research Center (Nanotechnology and Dentistry Center) as a researcher for two years, and she was lecturer in the Materials engineering department of Islamic Azad University in Iran for three semesters before starting her Ph.D. In the duration of her Ph.D., she worked on Radiative cooling by spectrally selective materials for buildings in the Center for Energy, Environment and Economy (CEEE/ECEM). She is a Research Associate in the Advanced Heat Exchangers and Process Intensification lab at the University of Maryland, College Park since 2021 and working on “Energy Audit of Buildings” and “Thermal management of data centers”. Her research interests include energy efficiency in the buildings, renewable energies, heat transfer, and advanced materials. Dr. Family is the author or co-author of 15 publications in international journals and conferences. She is a member of ASHARE and AEE. She is recipient of financial support from INIC (Iranian Nanotechnology Initiative Council) for the project entitled “Hydroxyapatite Nanocomposite Coating on Titanium Dental Implants” which she became the best presenter for this project in the 1 st National Conference on Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Iran, and she also has an Iranian patent for it.

CURRENT Ph.D. STUDENTS

Zhengda Yao

Zhengda Yao joined S2TS lab as a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering in 2019 after completing his B.S. in Harbin Engineering University. In the fourth year of his Undergraduate degree, he conducted simulations based on turbulent flow.  In University of Maryland, his field is about computational fluid dynamics and experiments about additive manufacturing. Currently, he is working on topology optimizations of heart exchangers with CFD Software.  

Harsimranjit Singh

Harsimranjit received his bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh, India. He pursued his Master’s degree in mechanical engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark.  Before joining UMD as a doctoral student, he worked on synthesis and characterization of fuel cell cathode catalyst material. Primarily, he worked on the characterization of stability and durability of metal-free catalysts for oxygen reduction reactions in alkaline medium.  His research focus at UMD  is ultra-high flux two-phase cooling of laser diodes.

Thais P.A. Ferreira

Thais P. A. Ferreira received her bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from UTFPR (Brazil), in 2016. Her undergraduate thesis concerned the design and fabrication of a heat exchanger to operate with nanofluids. She became a Reliability Engineering Specialist by the same institution in 2018. She pursued her M.Sc. in Space’s Sciences and Technologies, from 2018 to 2020, at ITA (Brazil), where she developed her work on the numerical simulation of a two-phase flow of R-134a operating in conditions analogous to Pressurized Water Reactors ones. From jul/2020 to dec/2022 she worked on her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at UFSC (Brazil), where she researched convective boiling flow of CO2 in microchannels. This project was paused so she could join the AHX-PI lab, as a Mechanical Engineering PhD student, in 2023, where she will be working in developing micro heat exchangers that operate with supercritical CO2.

 

Murilo Nicoluzzi

Murilo obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil) in 2019. His undergraduate thesis focused on the characterization of rarefied refrigerant fluid flows through microchannels. He obtained a Master’s degree from the same university in 2022, with his thesis focusing on experimentally evaluating the piston-cylinder leakage in reciprocating compressors. He now joins the AHX-PI team in 2023 to pursue a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, contributing to the development of a heat sink for a new electric motor.

Veeresh Ayyagari

Veeresh received his Bachelors degree from SVNIT, Surat India in 2015. He worked at Larsen & Toubro, Mumbai for 2 years as a Mechanical Design Engineer. He joined University of Maryland in 2017 to pursue a masters inmechanical engineering. His master’s thesis was focused on the design of Atmospheric Water Harvesters.Veeresh joined S2TS as a Graduate Research Assistant in spring 2021 to pursue a Phd in Mechanical Engineering.  At S2TS he will be working on Thermal energy storage systems and Additive manufacturing of Composite Polymer Heat Exchangers.

GRADUATE ASSISTANTS

Aditya Ramnarayan

Aditya received his B. Tech (Bachelor of Technology) degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2020 from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) with his undergraduate thesis and titled "Fluid-Structure Interactions (FSI) and its applications in Energy Harvesting". He is currently pursuing his MS in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland. At S2TS, he is currently working in the Energy Audits Team focusing on reducing energy consumption and increasing energy efficiency in buildings across the State of Maryland.

Shwe Htet Htet Aung

Shwe graduated from the Technological University of Kalay located in Myanmar with a dual bachelor’s degree in Electronic and Communication Engineering in 2020. Her undergraduate thesis was a Smart Agricultural Auto Monitoring System using IoT. Shwe led her team in a project titled Smart Home Automation System Using Bluetooth and won 2nd prize in the nation wide Technological University level competition at the “4th International Technology and Industry Show 2018, Yangon”. During her studies, she held various leadership roles. She is currently studying for her master’s program in electrical and computer engineering. She joins the AHX-PI team in 2023 as a research assistant while studying for her graduate degree.

Jordan Higgins

Jordan graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering May of 2022. He is currently pursuing his MS in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland. In S2TS, Jordan primarily works as a part of the Energy Auditing team which focuses on the decarbonization of buildings for the State of Maryland.

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