Dr. Malavika V. Bagepalli
Member from 2018 to 2022
Malavika is a former Graduate Research Assistant in the Solar-FTL. She received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Ohio State University in 2015, and her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2022. 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 NSF GRFP Fellow in the Solar FTL and received both his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Prior to joining the Solar FTL, Evan received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Louisville in 2014. While in the Solar FTL, Evan’s research focused on the synthesis and characterization of novel reduction-oxidation (redox) active materials for concentrated solar thermochemistry. Evan is currently a postdoctoral appointee at Sandia National Laboratories in Concentrating Solar Technologies.
Ashley Clendenen
Member from 2018 to 2020
Ashley received her MS degree in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering in the summer of 2020. Ashley’s research focused on in-situ resource utilization for processing regolith using concentrated solar radiation. She received BS degrees in Applied Physics and Mathematics from Pacific Lutheran University in 2018 and, as a sophomore, studied physics at Oxford University. As an undergraduate, Ashley worked as a physics labs teaching assistant and completed an independent study modeling project in computational astrophysics. She also competed in the 2018 Mathematical Contest in Modeling, for which her team received Honorable Mention. Ashley is currently pursuing a PhD at Georgia Tech in Physics.
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 a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Rutgers in 2017 with a minor in Mathematics, and his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2022. 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. Shin Young Jeong
Member from 2020 to 2023
Shin Young received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Prior to joining the Solar FTL, Shin Young received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 2016 and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from HKUST in 2018. Shin Young’s research examined radiative heat transfer within particulate media and granular flows at elevated temperatures for solar thermal energy storage applications. He was co-supervised by Drs. Peter Loutzenhiser and Zhuomin Zhang during his PhD at Georgia Tech. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Dr. Alexander Muroyama
Member from 2012 to 2017
Alex is a former NSF GRFP Fellow in the Solar FTL and received both his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Prior to joining the Solar FTL, Alex received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. While in the Solar FTL, Alex’s research included 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 currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.
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 a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University in 2015, and his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2017 and 2021, respectively. Garrett’s graduate research focused on the study of volatile transport within regolith on airless bodies (i.e. Moon, Near-Earth Asteroids) and its application to in-situ resource utilization for water-harvesting and fuels production. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Central Florida, and 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 and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Valparaiso University in 2014 with a minor in Humanitarian Engineering. As an undergraduate, Andrew completed REU programs at Missouri University of Science and Technology in additive manufacturing and Valparaiso University in systems controls. Andrew’s PhD research included the design, modeling and optimization of solar reactors for thermochemical storage of and electricity production from concentrating solar energy. Andrew is an Assistant Professor at the University of Dayton in Mechanical Engineering.
Justin Yarrington
Member from 2018 to 2020
Justin Yarrington completed his MS degree in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech in the summer of 2020. Justin’s research focused on the characterization of granular flows as heat transfer and storage media in concentrated solar power (CSP) systems. He received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University-Idaho (BYU-I) in 2018. 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