Austin earned his B.S. degree in Engineering Science from UC Berkeley in 2006, an M.S. degree from MIT in 2008, and his Ph.D. from MIT in 2011. He is the recipient of of the Department of Defense and NSF Graduate Fellowships. While at MIT, Austin worked on experimental characterization of thermoelectrics. Currently Austin is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at CalTech. His work focuses on understanding energy transport at the nanoscale using a variety of experimental and theoretical techniques, including an ultrafast pump-probe experiment.
Andy Muto is a recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University in 2005, his M.S. degree from MIT in 2008, and his Ph.D. from MIT in 2011. His research focused on thermoelectric materials and the measurement of thermal and thermoelectric properties of nanotubes and nanowires. Andy joined Corning in the summer of 2011 as a Process Development Engineer on Corning's fusion draw machines which make flat glass substrates for LCD displays.
Tom Harris is currently a postdoctoral appointee at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, located within Sandia National Laboratories. Tom received B.E. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2000 and 2003, respectively, and an S.M. degree in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering both from MIT in 2010. His Ph.D. work focused on correlating the electrical and thermal transport properties of individual nanoscale materials with their atomic structure using transmission electron microscopy. This work relied extensively on micro- and nanofabrication, highly sensitive electrical and thermal low-temperature measurements, and both manipulation and placement of single nanostructures. Tom's research interests include both measurement and modeling of carrier transport in low-dimensional structures, (specifically) inorganic nanowires, thin films, and carbon-based nanostructures, and the design, control, and fabrication of nanoscale electromechanical systems.
Sheng Shen received his Ph.D. from MIT in 2010 and will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University starting in 2011. In the interim he will pursue a postdoc in University of California at Berkeley with Professor Xiang Zhang. His research in the NanoEngineering Group at MIT focused on nanoscale thermal radiation, thermal and optical characterization of nanostructured materials, and solar energy conversion. Sheng has a B.S. and and M.S. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China.
Qing Hao received his B.E. degree in Thermal Engineering from Tsinghua University, China, in 2001. He then obtained his M.S. degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004, and his Ph.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2010, both in Mechanical Engineering. Under the supervision of Prof. Gang Chen, his Ph.D. thesis focused on developing nanostructured thermoelectric materials for applications in refrigeration and electric power generation. His work on high-performance nanostructured bismuth antimony telluride bulk alloys not only produced a co-first authored Science paper but also won him the 2008 R&D 100 Award as a team member. Currently, he is working on lithium ion batteries as a postdoctoral research associate in Prof. Gerbrand Ceder's group at MIT. His long-term research interest is nanoscale energy transport and its applications in advanced materials and nano-electronic devices.
Mike received his BS and MS from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT in 2008 and 2010, respectively. During graduate school, he was a Warren M. Rohsenow and Tau Beta Pi Fellow, a recipient of the Wunsch Award for academic excellence, and was selected for a Department of Defense SMART Fellowship. For his Master's thesis, he designed a portable, home-scale power generation system for off-grid users in the developing world. He currently serves as VP of Products for his start-up, Lark Technologies, Inc., based in Silicon Valley.
Hohyun Lee received his Ph.D in 2009 and is currently an assistant professor at Santa Clara University. His research focused on the transport phenomena in nanocomposites and the enhancement of the thermoelectric properties of SiGe nanocomposites. Hohyun has a B.S.(2003) in mechanical engineering from Seoul National University and an S.M.(2005) in mechanical engineering from MIT.
Asegun Henry received his Ph.D. from MIT in 2009 and will start as an assistant professor in the Woodruff school of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech in 2011. In the interim, Asegun will pursue postdoctoral research on ab initio techniques, such as density functional theory, with Dr. David Singh at Oak Ridge National Labs. While in the nanoengineering group, his research focused on classical molecular dynamics simulations with an emphasis on the development of innovative analysis techiques. Asegun also holds a BS degree in mechanical engineering from Florida A & M University and a MS degree in mechanical engineering from MIT.
Lu Hu received his Ph.D. in 2008 and is currently working for ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company. His research with the NanoEngineering group focused on thermophotovoltaic devices, photon absorption in photovoltaic cells, selective surfaces for solar thermal applications, and other thermal radiation problems. Lu has a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from University of Science and Technology of China. and a M.S. in mechanical engineering from Purdue University.
Vincent Berube received his Ph.D. in 2008 and is currently working for McKinsey and Company. His research at MIT focused on nanoscale thermodynamics and kinetics of hydrogen adsorption. Vince has a B.S. in Physics from Universite Laval (2003).
Aaron has a B.S. (2002), M.S. (2004), and Ph.D. (2008) in mechanical engineering from MIT. He is a recipient of the Warren M. Rohsenow Fellowship from the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT, and graduate research fellowships from the NSF and Department of Defense. His Ph.D. research was on the development of ultrafast optical methods for characterizing thermal transport in solids, liquids and nanostructures. Aaron will be joining the faculty at Boston University after a collaboration with the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) in Abu Dhabi and a post-doc at the University of Michigan.
Arvind received his Ph.D. in 2007 and is currently an assistant professor at Columbia University. Arvind has a B.S. from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras (1997) and an M.S. from the University of Delaware (1999). He worked at Microstrategy, Inc. from 1999-2001 before joining the NanoEngineering Group in January 2001. Arvind's research interests include:
- Thermal radiation transport in nanoscale structures
- Near field effects due to surface polaritons
- Spectrally selective emitters
- Modeling thermal radiation phenomena using dyadic Green's function methods
- Experimental investigation of near field phenomena.
Zony Chen graduated with a Ph.D. in the summer of 2007. His research focused on surface polaritons and their application to nano-optics and nanoscale thin film thermal conductivity. Zony is currently working for McKinsey & Company.
Erik is a Lieutenant in the United Stated Coast Guard. He received a masters degree in 2007 for his work on the thermal conductivity of stretched polymers.
Chris Dames earned his Ph.D. in 2006. His research concerned thermal properties and applications of nanotubes and nanowires. Chris published work on both theoretical properties of nanowires [1,2] and experimental measurements of their properties [3,4]. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside.
Jack Ma graduated with an M.S. in 2006. His masters research focused on the experimental characterization of nanofluids.
Ronggui Yang graduated with a Ph.D. in 2005. His research was primarily focused on the theoretical modeling of phonon transport in nanotructures. Ronggui is currently an assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Fardad Hashemi received his Ph.D. in 2005. His thesis was on the development of the nanotweezers.
Jim Cybulski received an M.S. in 2004 for his work on roll-up structures for electromagnetic metamaterials. He then spent a year at Intel before going to Stanford to pursue his Ph.D.
Bao Yang graduated in 2004 with a Ph.D. Bao did research on phonon transport and thermoelectrics. He is currently an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland
Ashish Shah graduated with an M.S. in 2003. His thesis was on the development of nano-gap structures for thermophotovoltaics.
Jianping Fu received his M.S. in 2003. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in the Micro/Nanofluidic BioMEMS Group at MIT.
Diana Borca-Tasciuc graduated with a Ph.D. in 2005. Her research was focused on the thermal properties of nanocomposites. She joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's mechanical engineering department as an assistant professor in 2006.
Theodorian Borca-Tasciuc received his Ph.D. in 2000, focusing on nanoscale heat transfer and energy conversion. He joined the Rensselaer faculty as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in 2001.
Weili Liu received his Ph.D. in 2003. His thesis was on the thermal properties of superlattices and thin films. Weili is currently a postdoctoral research associate in the Nano-Device Laboratory at the University of California, Riverside.
David Song
David Song received his Ph.D. from the Mechanical Engineering Department at UCLA in June 2003. His thesis was on phonon heat conduction in nano and micro-porous thin films.