Dr. Malavika V. Bagepalli
Member from 2018 to 2022
Malavika is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL. She received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Malavika’s graduate research focused on studying granular flows at elevated temperatures for solar thermal energy storage and transport integrated into concentrated solar power applications. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratories where she is the Rosenfeld Postdoctoral Fellow.
PhD Dissertation: Granular flow experiments and models coupled with temperature-dependent measured properties for solar thermal energy transport and storage
Dr. H. Evan Bush
Member from 2014 to 2019
Evan is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL and was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. He received both his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Evan’s graduate research focused on the synthesis and characterization of novel reduction-oxidation (redox) active materials for concentrated solar thermochemistry. Evan is currently a member of the senior staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Concentrating Solar Technologies group.
Ashley Clendenen
Member from 2018 to 2020
Ashley is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL and received her MS degree in Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Ashley’s graduate research focused on in-situ resource utilization for processing regolith using concentrated solar irradiation.
MSc Thesis: Concentrated solar driven in-situ resource utilization for lunar exploration
Dr. Chuyang Chen
Member from 2018 to 2022
Chuyang is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Chuyang’s graduate research focused on studying radiative heat transfer through particulate media for modeling solar thermal energy storage with direct integration into concentrated solar power applications. He is currently working at Huawei in China as a Senior Research Engineer.
PhD Dissertation: Spectral Radiative Properties and Radiation Heat Transfer of Bauxite and SiO2 Particles for Solar Thermal Applications
Dr. Tyler P. Farr
Member from 2019 to 2025
Tyler is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Tyler’s graduate research focused on low fugacity transport and solar thermal extraction of H2O from permanently shadowed regions of the Moon. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in Chemistry at Georgia Tech in conjunction with Lawrence Berkeley National Labs.
PhD Dissertation: A Study on the Thermal Extraction of H2 from Lunar Regolith Simulant Using Concentrated Solar Thermal Technology
Dr. Shin Young Jeong
Member from 2020 to 2023
Shin Young is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL and received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Shin Young’s graduate research examined radiative heat transfer within particulate media and granular flows at elevated temperatures for solar thermal energy storage applications. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
PhD Dissertation: Study of Granular Flow and Radiative Properties of Bauxite Particles for Solar Thermal Applications
Matthew Marton
Member from 2021 to 2024
Matthew is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL and received his MS degree in Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Matthew’s graduate research focused optimization of particle-based concentrated solar power systems.
MSc Thesis: Modeling of Thermal Storage Silos and Heat Exchangers for Particle-based Concentrated Solar Power
Dr. Alexander Muroyama
Member from 2012 to 2017
Alex is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL and was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. He received both his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Alex’s graduate research focused on the design, modeling and demonstration of a hybrid solar/autothermal process for the steam gasification of carbonaceous materials. Alex also studied the kinetic behavior of Co3O4/CoO reduction-oxidation cycles for the thermochemical storage of and electricity production from concentrated sunlight. Alex is the Chief Engineer at NovaMea in Switzerland.
Dr. Nhu “Ty” Nguyen
Member from 2019 to 2024
Ty is a former Graduate Research Assistant in Solar-FTL and received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Ty’s research focused on solar thermochemical air separation and ammonia production. She is currently at Blue Origin.
PhD Dissertation: Renewable solar thermochemical NH3 production cycle: materials characterization, cycles investigation and reactor modeling
Dr. Garrett L. Schieber
Member from 2015 to 2021
Garrett is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL and Instructor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. He received his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Garrett’s graduate research focused on the study of volatile transport within regolith on airless bodies (i.e. Moon, Near-Earth Asteroids) and related applications to in-situ resource utilization for water-harvesting and fuels production. He is currently working at Blue Origin as a ISRU Mechanical Engineer
PhD Dissertation: Experimentation and modeling of mass and heat transport for the design of lunar in-situ resource utilization technology
Dr. Andrew J. Schrader
Member from 2014 to 2019
Andrew is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar FTL and Instructor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. He received both his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Andrew’s graduate research focused on the design, modeling and optimization of solar reactors for thermochemical storage of heat towards electricity production from concentrating solar irradiation. Andrew is an Assistant Professor at the University of Dayton in Mechanical Engineering.
Justin Yarrington
Member from 2018 to 2020
Justin is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL and completed his MS degree in 2020. Justin’s graduate research focused on the characterization of granular flows as heat transfer and storage media in concentrated solar power (CSP) systems. Justin is currently working at Idaho National Laboratories as a Nuclear Research Mechanical Design Engineer.
MSc Thesis: Numerical and experimental analyses of room and high temperature dense, granular flows coupled to flow property measurements for solar thermal energy storage