Thermal Analysis, Microfluidics, and Fuel Cell Laboratory
Past Students
Arjun Radhakrishnan
Arjun Radhakrishnan joined TAMFL in winter of 2007. He completed his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, India. He is currently pursuing his MS degree in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on thermo/fluids. He is also working towards the measurement of thermal conductivity of Gas Diffusion Layer in a Fuel Cell stack.
Akhilesh Bapat
Akhilesh Bapat received his Bachelor's degree from Government College of Engineering, Pune, India in 2004. He then spent a year working for Thermax India Ltd. on industrial boilers and vapor absorption chillers. In September of 2005, he joined the Thermal Analysis Lab in order to pursue an M.S. degree. He worked on single-phase and two-phase heat transfer in microchannels with electronics cooling application, graduating in 2007.
Christopher Lee McDade
Lee finished his BS in mechanical engineering at RIT with an automotive focus and is currently enrolled as a full time MS student. His thesis work is in the application of acoustic microscopy for GDL imaging.
Cody Rath
Cody is a transfer student from Alfred State where he earned an Associates Degree in Engineering Science. He is currently working towards a Bachelor and Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering as part of the Dual Degree program. He plans on continuing his thesis research in the lab working with Dr. Kandlikar.
David Hein
Dave Hein is a fourth year Mechanical Engineering student working in the Lab. He is currently working on a variety of different projects with the graduate students. The most recent project he worked on was for the Melles Griot vibration table setup. He designed an eightand-a-half foot long shelf system to straddle a table that will house all power and recirculation units for test setups on the table, and ordered all the parts to construct it. He has also worked with Mark Steinke on his current research project by machining some parts in the machine shop. Finally, he is working with some data on Critical Heat Flux.
Derek Schmitt
Derek is a BS/MS student currently working on finishing his thesis which studies the effects of pressure drop in micro and mini channels. His professional interests include design and analysis, FEA, solid body mechanics, and micro fluidics. Recently, Derek has been employed at Xerox Corporation where he was a design engineer for the DocuTech 120. Previously, Derek worked at National Fuel Gas where he was in charge of modeling and redesigning natural gas pipe networks. Expected graduation is in March of 2004.
Daniel Willstein
Dan Willistein received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from RIT in May, 2003. He completed co-op blocks at Delphi, GM and Calvary Automation, a local automated/assembly machine design company. After graduation he worked at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems in Portsmouth, Rhode Island as a design engineer. He worked on the mechanical components of weapons data systems for submarine and surface ships. Taking an academic leave of absence in the fall of 2004, he enrolled in the master of science program in mechanical engineering at RIT and joined the TAMFL. He is currently working on two phase flow in minichannels for PEM fuel cell water management applications.
Dwight Cooke
Dwight Cooke received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from RIT in 2009. He joined the lab as a co-op student in 2008 working with the fuel cell group. His masters thesis investigated the effect of surface enhancements on pool boiling heat transfer for high heat flux cooling.
Jacob LaManna
Jacob joined the lab in September of 2007 to begin thesis work for his BS/MS degree. He has an interest in advanced energy systems and thermo/fluid systems. His thesis work will focus on heat and mass transfer within a PEM fuel cell.
Harshal R. Upadhye
Harshal joined the Thermal Analysis and Microfluidics Lab in 2002 as a MS in Mechanical Engineering student working on Microchannel optimization for electronics cooling applications. He defended his thesis titled 'Single Phase Thermohydraulic Performance Analysis of Microchannel Flow Geometry for Direct Chip Cooling' in 2004. Before joining RIT he got a BS in Mechanical Engineering from University of Pune, India. Harshal has worked with Delphi's Thermal Solutions group in the electronics cooling field. His interests include heat transfer, fluid dynamics and computers.
John Borelli
John Borrelli worked in the precision tool-making industry as a New York State certified moldmaker for 10 years before completing his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at RIT in May 2003. He has worked co-op blocks at the National Center for Remanufacturing and Resource Recovery, Pfaudler Inc. and Delphi and is currently pursuing a master's degree in mechanical engineering with a concentration in thermo/fluids. His interests are micro/mini-channel flow in fuel-cell applications.
Joaquin Pelaez
Joaquin Pelaez joined the Thermal Analysis Lab around winter 2006, studying the effects of freezing and thawing in PEM fuel cells. He completed his BS/MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering in 2007.
Jeff Perry
Jeff Perry joined the TAMFL in the Spring of 2004. He has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire and an M.S. in Microelectronic Engineering from RIT. He has a strong background in semiconductor processing. Jeff's Master of Science thesis topic dealt with the effect of deposition pressure on sputtered tantalum film stress with applications to copper CMP (Chemical Mechanical Planarization). Currently Jeff is pursuing his Ph.D. in Microsystems Engineering and his doctoral work will involve flow boiling of water in microchannels.
Jackie Sergi
Jackie Sergi is a Mechanical Engineering graduate student pursuing her Masters Degree at RIT. She joined the lab in 2005 as a co-op student, and has since worked for General Motors on a Department of Energy fuel cell project shared with RIT. Her current work involves fuel cell water management research.
Mark E. Steinke
Mark joined the TAMFL in Fall of 2000 and has completed a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Thermal Fluids Science. His thesis topic was the flow boiling of water in microchannels and the potential use of two-phase flows to provide an alternative for microprocessor cooling. Currently, Mark is pursuing a Ph.D. in Microsystems Engineering while remaining in the lab. His dissertation topic is the modeling, experimentation, and optimization of single-phase microchannel flows for direct, integrated cooling of microprocessors.
Mike Daino
Michael Daino joined the lab in December 2007 as a Microsystems Ph.D. student. He received a B.S. degree in Physics and Mathematics from SUNY College at Brockport in May, 2007. His doctoral work involved the imaging water transport through the gas diffusion layer of a PEM fuel cell.
Nathan English
Nathan English is completing the master of science program in mechanical engineering at RIT with a concentration in thermo/fluids. This builds upon the bachelor of science degree that he earned in physics from Roberts Wesleyan College. His thesis will investigate adiabatic two phase pressure drop of an air-water mixture in minichannels. His chief academic interests are heat transfer, micro fluidics, and fuel cell technology.
Narendra Patil
Narendra Patil completed his bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from India. Narendra is currently a grauduate student in the Computer for Integrated Manufacturing and System concentrating in Product Design. He is currently doing his thesis under the valuable guidance of Dr. Kandlikar and is working on Meniscus heat transfer project. He is confident that his research experience here will help him in the long run of his career.
Nicholas Schneider
Nicholas joined the lab during his second year. He was a co-op during the summer of 2007 where he worked on the DOE fuel cell project. Nicholas has since began his Master's thesis work under the lab's NSF grant studying the effects of surface roughness on heat transfer in microscale.
Prabhu Balasubramanian
Resume
Prabhu Balasubramanian is a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering Department at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Madras in 2000. His M.S. thesis is on the study of Heat transfer and two-phase mechanisms during flow boiling in minichannels and microchannels, with applications to electronic cooling and fuel cells. His other areas of research interest include Compact heat exchangers and CFD analysis. He is also a member of ASME since 2001.
Rishabh Srivastava
Rishabh Srivastava joined the Thermal Analysis and Microfluidics Laboratory in Fall 2008. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, India in June 2008. His work involved numerical and mathematical modeling of flow encountered in microfluidic applications. He studied roughness effects on fluid flow and heat transfer using CFD modeling. He performed numerical investigation of entrance region effects in microchannels in the presence of microscale roughness structures of varying pitches. Currently he is pursuing PhD in mechanical engineering at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Rebecca Wagner
Rebecca Wagner joined the lab in the summer of 2008, after receiving her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from RIT. Her thesis work focuses on the effects of two-dimensional structured roughness on laminar and turbulent fluid flow at the microscale level.
Tushara Pasupuleti
Tushara Pasupuleti is a master's student in Microelectronics Engineering Department. She completed her bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at Kavikulguru Institute of Technology, Ramtek India. She is working on IBM chip cooling project. Her thesis concentration is on studying the roughness effects in microchannels with integrated MEMS pressure sensors.
Tim Brackbill
Tim Brackbill joined TAMFL in the summer of 2005 as a co-op student. He completed his B.S./M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in thermo/fluids in the Spring of 2008. His thesis topic extensively studied the effects of roughness on flow at the microscale level.
Wai Keat Kuan
Wai Keat Kuan received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana State University and Rochester Institute of Technology, in 1996 and 2003, respectively. He worked at Sony, Inc. from 1996 to 1997, at Intel Technology from 1997 to 1999 and at Xerox Corporation from 1999 to 2002. He is pursuing his Ph.D. in Microsystems Engineering at the TAMFL, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY. His doctoral work is on two-phase microchannel flows. Mr. Kuan is a member of ASME.
Viral Vinodray Dharaiya
Viral Dharaiya joined the Thermal Analysis and Microfluids Lab in Fall 2008. He completed his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Technology, Gujarat, India. He is currently pursuing his MS degree in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Thermodynamics/Fluid Analysis. He is working on CFD modeling and his major contribution involves numerical analysis of fluid and heat transfer aspects in minichannels and microchannels. He is also involved in performing numerical investigation to study the effect of surface roughness on transport properties in parallel plate microchannels using CFD software, FLUENT.
Last updated 05.24.2010