September 2022

Inside this Issue

Features

• Welcome to our 19th Edition
• From the Chair of the Board,
  Dr. Shelley D. Dionne
• News & Events
• Link Fellows/Interns/Scholars, where are they now?

Meet this Year's Fellowship Recipients

• Energy
• Modeling, Simulation and Training
• Ocean Engineering
• SmithsonianFellows

Link Fellowship Awardees for 2022 - 2023

Energy

FIRST YEAR FELLOWS:

Abhiroop is from the culturally diverse country of India. He received his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in the city of Gandhinagar, named after Mahatma Gandhi. There he conducted research on materials for thin-film solar cells. At UIUC, he is working towards a Ph.D. under the guidance of Prof. Joaquín Rodríguez-López to develop spatially resolved electrochemical tools for investigating degradation products from Li-ion battery (LiB) cathodes, such as oxygen released during LiB overcharging. His doctoral work will lead to the development of tools which will enable in situ, real-time investigation of these degradation processes. Subsequently, they will enable identification of cathode compositions and operating conditions which lead to batteries with extended lifetimes, for applications such as electric vehicles. In addition to research work, Abhiroop is the founder and president of the Electrochemical Society student chapter at UIUC, which aims to promote discussion and collaboration among the electrochemistry community. In his free time, Abhiroop enjoys playing soccer and watching Lionel Messi play. He tries to follow this quote by Messi - "My ambition is always to get better and better."

 

Cristina is Graduate Student Researcher in the Electricity Markets and Policy Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she has worked on modeling market value of hybrid energy plants and battery degradation.  With the support of the Fulbright fellowship, she completed a masters at the Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley, where she is now a Ph.D. student. Her research focuses on inequities in household energy transitions, focusing on electrification and residential solar adoption policies.  She holds a Dual Masters of Science in Industrial Engineering in Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and École Centrale Paris.  Prior to her graduate studies, Cristina worked as a mechanical engineer in the  Danish Technical University’s Wind Energy Department, and on solar development projects at the Spanish energy utility Iberdrola. 

 

Rachel is a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research explores how plasmonic nanomaterials, which harvest energy from light to drive redox reactions, can be combined with electrochemical systems to convert wastes and other small molecules into value-added chemicals. More specifically, she is interested in using this approach to generate ammonia, a promising fuel, in a manner that is independent of fossil fuels and less energy intensive than the industrial Haber-Bosch process. She and her coworkers have thus far demonstrated that the electrochemical yield of ammonia from nitrate reduction can be increased by an order of magnitude through plasmonic photochemical effects. Furthermore, Rachel serves as a mentor for new graduate students and advocates safe laboratory practices as a board member of the UIUC Chemistry Department’s Joint Safety Team.

 

Prince is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Cornell University. His passion to create efficient and environmentally-friendly energy solutions led him to obtain a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He also worked for KPMG as an analyst in the Energy and Natural Resources Department to better understand the rationale behind several economic decisions made by diverse energy firms. His current research is focused on producing carbon negative H2 from renewable biomass sources while simultaneously utilizing alkaline industrial residues (e.g., steel slag) as carbon sink materials to create value added materials such as carbonates. His work has already led to publications in reputable journals as well as notable conference presentations. In addition, Prince serves as a graduate research coordinator for the Cornell Atkinson Center for sustainability and organizes research symposiums, and career workshops that brings together graduate students, faculty members and industry collaborators. Being passionate about giving back to his community, Prince has co-founded the Association of Nigerian Scholars in America (ANSA) and is an active volunteer for Cornell Diversity Program in Engineering (DPE) geared towards increasing minority representation in engineering.

 

SECOND YEAR FELLOWS:

Taryn is a Ph.D. student with the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley and a Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute. Her research interests center on the technical design and political economy of decarbonization policies. Taryn came to Berkeley from a career in climate policy, during which she served most recently as an advisor to the California Governor’s Office on the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit. Previously, she led WRI’s Open Climate Network – a coalition for ambition and transparency in climate action under the Paris Agreement – as well as a GHG Protocol initiative to build capacity on GHG accounting in emerging economies. Taryn is a lead author of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report and has served on the board of the GHG Management Institute. She holds an B.S. and M.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University.

 

Xiaomeng is Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research is focused on developing novel 'green' energy devices to harvest electricity from ambient humidity. Specifically, he is working on using electrically conductive protein nanowires, an exciting green material harvested from microbe Geobacter sulfurreducens, to fabricate a thin-film device that can harvest electricity from the ambient humidity. Much of his work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and he filed two patents. His goal is to and develop strategies to translate the lab discovery into scalable technology for broad impacts. He is an active member at the UMass-Amherst Electrical and Computer Engineering department and has been particularly passionate about interfacing with younger researchers. He served as an effective mentor to undergraduate students in his lab to help engage them in their research projects.

 

Nora is a Ph.D. candidate at the Center for Polymers and Organic Solids at the University of California Santa Barbara under the supervision of Prof. Quyen Nguyen. Her research on organic photovoltaics (OPVs) is driven by the need for sustainable, remote, and integrated energy solutions. With the goal to facilitate the development and implementation of OPVs, Nora answers fundamental material science questions and has developed a new, simple method to unravel the complex optoelectronic processes in OPV devices. Her research in the field of energy efficiency and sustainability has been recognized by several awards and has led to over a dozen research articles in peer-reviewed high-impact journals. Her recent focus lays on semitransparent OPVs, which can open new possibilities for integrated energy harvesting, such as in zero-net-energy buildings.

Before joining UCSB, Nora graduated with a B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry with distinction from RWTH Aachen University, Germany. As a member of Women in Science at UCSB, Nora has organized outreach and campus events to promote equity in STEM. Moreover, she is active at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry as a research mentor for undergraduate students, host of the annual departmental poster session, and member of the new graduate student recruitment committee.

 

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If you would like to find out more about our Link Foundation Energy Fellows and projects that have been funded in the field of Energy by the Link Foundation, please visit the Link Energy Fellowship webpage at http://www.linkenergy.org/fellows.

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