• Senior Research Scientist at NextEra Analytics
• Pursuing MS in Computer Science–Machine Learning from Georgia Institute of Technology
• Former Research Faculty at Florida State University Center for Advanced Power Systems
• Received PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Florida State University and BS in Electrical Engineering / minor in Physics from Dordt University
  
  

News

• 09/2022 NEW JOB: I’ve joined NextEra Analytics in St. Paul, MN as Senior Research Scientist!
• 05/2022 PAPER: Check out our latest paper entitled multi-fidelity power flow solver submitted to IEEE ResWeek 2022. Paper
• 02/2022 PAPER: Check out my recent paper entitled solar-driven liquid air power plant modeling, design space exploration, and multi-objective optimization published in Energy. Paper
• 01/2022 PAPER: Check out our paper on thermal modeling and simulation of electronics published in SAGE Simulation. Paper
• 10/2021 PATENT: Check out our patent entitled Solar energy collection system with symmetric wavy absorber pipe. Patent
• 07/2021 PATENT: Check out our patent entitled Integrated thermal-electrical component for power electronics converters. Patent
• 06/2021 GRANT: My joint proposal with INL entitled Interdependent Infrastructure Systems Resilience Analysis for Enhanced Microreactor Power Grid Penetration was selected for $1.5M Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) award from the U.S. Department of Energy! This will be a 3-year project starting in October 2021.
• 05/2021 STUDENT: Jessica Moorefield (FSU, major in CS & English) has successufully finished her UROP. Her work on physics-informed neural networks will be published soon.

Research Interests

I am interested in tackling multi-disciplinary physics problems and bridging the gap between artificial intelligence, classical thermal-fluids, and renewable energy.

Below is a short list of my research projects in alphabetical order.

Building Science

Support: Actively seeking
Collaborator: Actively seeking

1. Propose concrete strategies to promote smart energy/exergy-efficient buildings
2. Modeling, simulation, and optimization of HVAC systems, building orientation, usage, etc.

Papers: Building simulation, Constructal design, Geothermal HVAC, HVAC optimization

Design Space Exploration

Support: Actively seeking
Collaborator: Actively seeking

1. Topology optimization using finite element models and stochastic optimization algorithms
2. Sensitivity analysis of complex energy systems

Papers: Cooling channel layout optimization, Solenoid optimization

Integrated Electronics Cooling

Role: Research Scientist
Support: ONR
Collaborator: FSU, VT, MIT, USC

1. Propose novel passive / active integrated electronics cooling solutions
2. Develop set-based thermal design framework for high-power next generation PEBBs

Papers: PEBB cooling survey, PEBB simulation, Patent under review

Machine Learning in Power Grid Contingency Analyses

Role: Principal Investigator
Support: US DOE
Collaborator: INL

1. Development of a zero shot, deep learning-based contingency analysis framework for power grid contingency analyses
2. Development of a novel contigency metric for large power grids

Paper: Machine learning in power grid analyses, Multi-fidelity power flow solver

Machine Learning in Thermal-Fluid Science

Role: Principal Investigator
Support: FSU
Collaborator: Actively seeking

1. Develop multi-fidelity (MF) models for thermal management of PEBBs, buildings, etc.
2. MF models are constructed by combining data-driven (or high-fidelity) and low-fidelity models using Gaussian Process or Polynomial Chaos Expansion
3. Use HPC for high-fidelity simulations and sampling
4. Super-resolution reconstruction of flow fields using neural networks
5. Physics-informed neural networks

Real-Time Thermal-Electrical Co-Simulations

Role:: Research Scientist
Support: ONR/ESO/SBIR
Collaborator: FSU, Michigan

1. Develop soft real-time thermal-fluid models in MATLAB/Simulink and couple them to power system models in RSCAD for real-time co-simulations
2. Integration of reduced-order battery models for real-time energy storage modeling

Paper: Real-time system-level simulation

Renewable Energy

Support: Actively seeking
Collaborator: Actively seeking

1. Develop mathematical models of parabolic trough solar collectors, flat-plate collectors, geothermal HVAC system, solar distillation system, etc.
2. Investigate novel heat transfer fluids and receiver designs for solar collectors
3. Comparative assessment of distributed vs. centralized renewable energy systems

Papers:
PTC model, PTC wavy design, Solar HTF, Transparent insulation materials, Biohydrogen, Photobioreactor, Patent under review

Thermal Management of Shipboard Energy Systems

Role:: Research Scientist
Support: ONR
Collaborator: MIT

1. Development of a dynamic system-level ship thermal management tool
2. Improve its numerical efficiency and accuracy, and develop parametric hexahedral mesh generation strategies and cooling network generation algorithm for various ship hulls

Papers:
Electromagnetic launcher model, Ship mesh, Ship thermal model, Shipboard integrated energy system

Collaborators