Scientist
Materials Science · Engineering · Research
B.S. — Ceramic Engineering
Alfred University
M.S. & Ph.D. — Mechanical Engineering
University of Colorado, Boulder
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Before graduate school, I worked as a research associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the country's largest science and energy labs. My work focused on thermal and mechanical characterization of materials and contributed to multiple publications.
HASEL Actuators
HASEL actuators are an electrostatic soft actuator developed in the Keplinger Research Group and commercialized by Artimus Robotics, the company I cofounded and ran for five years. I was instrumental in the very first prototypes of HASEL actuators in 2015 and then focused on the efficiencies of the electromechanical conversion process before pivoting to commercialization. This academic work was published in the journal Science, and featured in outlets such as National Geographic and Wired.
Ocean Wave Energy
The oceans are a massive potential source of renewable and carbon-free energy. Unfortunately, no transduction technologies currently exist to capture any significant amount of ocean wave energy. During my PhD I explored a way to use variable capacitance energy generation, combined with naturally occurring electric double layers available from the salt in the oceans, to convert ocean waves into electrical energy.
Flash Sintering
High performance ceramics such as ballistic armor require very high formation temperatures and thus are very energy intensive to produce. Flash Sintering uses electric fields and currents to directly impart energy into the workpiece, resulting in energy-efficient processing for ceramics. A highlight of this research was my time on various synchrotron light sources and education from the National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering.