People

Daryoosh Vashaee is the director of the Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering Research Group (NQERG) at North Carolina State University (NCSU) and a member of ASSIST Engineering Research Center.

He received his Ph.D. from University of California at Santa Cruz in 2004, worked at MIT as a postdoctoral scholar, at Oklahoma State University as an Assistant Professor, and joined North Carolina State University ECE department as Associate Professor in 2014. He became affiliated with the MSE department at NC State University in 2015.

His research interests are on the theoretical and experimental investigation of properties of quantum materials, nanomaterials, and devices for energy and information technology applications. In the past, he has contributed to the development of several key thermoelectric structures including heterostructure thermionic devices and bulk nanocomposite materials. He has published over 200 Scholarly articles, received the NSF CAREER award in 2014, and is the winner of the 2004 Goldsmid Award for research excellence in thermoelectrics from the International Thermoelectric Society.

Jie Liu joined NCSU as a postdoc in 2015. He received his Ph.D. degree in Engineering Science from Pennsylvania State University in 2013. His PhD work focused on the development of monolithically integrated semiconductor devices by integrating GaN LEDs and Schottky barrier diodes on commercially available LED wafers. His also worked on the investigation of colloidal quantum dot phosphors and LEDs. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. degree in electronics and optical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His research interests are in the fields of semiconductor devices and materials development. Currently he is focused on the SiGe epitaxy and thermoelectric devices based on SiGe superlattice.

Amin received his B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering from Sharif University of Technology and his M.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. His Master research focused on synthesis and characterization of high temperature nanostructured materials. Currently he is a PhD student at NCSU working on thermoelectric materials, particularly on p-type and n-type Bismuth Telluride nanostructured devices for body heat harvesting and SiGe for high temperature power generator.

Abhishek Malhotra was born in the town of Jammu in India. He finished his Bachelors of Technology from Manipal Institute of technology, Karnataka in the field of Electronics and Communications. He is presently pursuing a PhD in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University in the field of room temperature thermoelectrics. His research interests include Bulk and Thin film Thermoelectrics, Hydration Sensing and QCMs. His hobbies include Tennis, Table Tennis, Soccer and Classical Guitar.

Michael received a B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering and a Masters in Nanoengineering at NC State University. Currently working toward a Ph.D in Materials Science, his research is focused on the fabrication of bulk nanocrystalline and amorphous materials and the study of the electrical and thermal properties of these materials.

Aditi Agarwal is currently pursuing Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at NC State University. She received her B. Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from Delhi Technological University, Delhi, India. Her current research is focused on study of thermomagnetic materials.

Runze started his PhD program in Spring 2016. Before that, he received his B.E. in Electronic Information Science and Technology at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Currently he is working on thermoelectric materials.

Christopher received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Maryland, College Park and his M. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University.  The focus of his Master research was on developing CO mitigation strategies in low temperate fuel cells.  This approach used a combination of process development and nanomaterials research.  He is currently a PhD student at NC State investigating using pulse laser deposition techniques for the synthesis of novel thin films for advanced energy conversion.

Koushik Devarajan has completed his Master’s Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University. He did his undergraduate studies at NIT-Trichy in India in Instrumentation and Control engineering. His research focus is primarily concerns developing three dimensional simulation codes for studying the performance of the thermoelectric devices being developed in the lab. His areas of interest include MEMS sensors, thermoelectric generators, semiconductor fabrication. Apart from his academics, he is an ardent soccer fan and a cricketer plus a student and performer of Indian classical music.

Zack is from Apex, North Carolina. He is an undergraduate student majoring in electrical engineering and minoring in nanotechnology. He is working in the cleanroom about nano-fabrication techniques.

Zachary Fearnside is currently an undergraduate student at NC State in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. His previous experience was at Sandia National Laboratories simulating the efficiency of differing wireless energy solutions. As an undergraduate research assistant, he is investigating pulse laser deposition for the creation of thin films under Dr. Daryoosh Vashaee.

Haywood is from Cary, NC. He is majoring in dual Electrical & Computer Engineering and is working in the cleanroom labs on the fabrication of thermoelectric devices. His hobbies are paintball, grilling, and video games and his musical tastes are Linkin Park, Kansas, and J.Cole.

Melissa Hyland is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, holding a Bachelor of Science degree in Earth Science, Cum Laude. She also attended Wake Technical Community College to bridge courses to North Carolina State University where she will be transferring for Civil Engineering in Fall 2015. Her research at North Carolina State University with the ASSIST program involves thermoelectric generations and heat transfer from the body to power the device.

Payam is expert on theoretical calculations of electrical and thermal properties of solid state materials from first principles. In recent years, he has focused on studying and designing thermoelectric materials and in particular Clathrates and nano bulk structures.