Current Members and Alumni
Principal Investigator
Principal Investigator: Dr. Yan Wang
Principal Investigator: Dr. Yan Wang, Associate Professor
Mail: 1664 N. Virginia Street, Reno, NV 89557-0312
Tel: (775) 784-6468 Fax: (775) 784-1701 Email: yanwang@unr.edu
Biography
Dr. Yan Wang joined the University of Nevada, Reno as an assistant professor in 2016. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, in 2016. Prior to his study at Purdue, he received a B.Sc. degree in Measurement and Control from the Department of Precision Instruments at Tsinghua University, Beijing, in 2010. He also received a bachelor's degree in Economics from Tsinghua University in 2010. He is the recipient of the prestigious 2019 ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award and the 2021 NSF CAREER Award.
Professional Services
Dr. Wang has served as a reviewer for 30+ journals, including ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Materials Today Physics, Nano Letters, and Physical Review (B, E, Materials, Letters, and X). He has organized multiple topics and sessions for ASME's IMECE conference. He served as a lead guest editor for the Journal of Nanomaterials during 2016-2017 and as topic editor for Crystals during 2020-2021.
Honors and Awards
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NSF CAREER Award, National Science Foundation, 2021
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ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award, ACS Petroleum Research Fund, 2019
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College of Engineering Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award, Purdue University, 2015
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Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship, Purdue University, 2014-2015
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Frederick N. Andrews Fellowship, Purdue University, 2010-2012
ORCID
Postdoc Researchers
Biography
Dr. Iyyappa Rajan P joined our group in Summer 2021. He obtained his Ph.D. from Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Chennai Campus, Tamil Nadu, India, in 2018. He was a Young Scientist Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP), POSTECH Campus, South Korea from 2019 to 2021.
PhD Students
Biography
Mr. Theodore Maranets is a dedicated researcher who joined our group in the fall of 2021, pursuing a Ph.D. degree in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He completed his undergraduate studies at Northeastern University, Boston, MA USA in 2021, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics. In his free time, he enjoys reading science fiction and fantasy novels.
Honors and Awards
- Best Poster Award (1st-place), MICRO-NANO Forum, ASME IMECE, 2022
- Best Poster Award (1st place), ME Graduate Student Poster Contest, University of Nevada, Reno, 2023
Biography
Mr. Haoran Cui joined our group in the fall of 2021 and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. He completed his B.Eng in Project Cost from Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan, China in 2017, and subsequently earned his M.Eng in Mechanics from Beijing University of Technology (BJUT) in 2020. Apart from his academic pursuits, he enjoys playing basketball and has a passion for music.
Honors and Awards
- Best Poster Award (3rd-place), MICRO-NANO Forum, ASME IMECE, 2022
Biography
Mr. Milad Nasiri joined our group in Fall 2021. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. degree in the Mechanical Engineering department. He received his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering (specialty on Thermofluids and Renewable Energy) from the Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 2019. He also earned a B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering-Manufacturing from Semnan University, Semnan, Iran in 2015. He obtained a certificate for Green Energy Professionals from Renewables Academy (RENAC), Berlin, Germany in 2020. He likes playing football, traveling, hiking, watching movies, and listening to music while having free time.
Honors and Awards
- Best Poster Award (3rd place), ME Graduate Student Poster Contest, University of Nevada, Reno, 2023
Biography
Mr. Milad Mozafarifard joined our research team in fall 2021. He is pursuing his Ph.D. degree in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and working on the thermal transport in materials under femtosecond repetitious laser pulses. He received his B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering, Heat and Fluids, from IAU, and M.Sc. degree in Energy Conversion from SCU in 2011 and 2017 respectively. Before joining us, he has worked as an independent researcher, and published several research articles in peer-reviewed journals, including IJHMT, ICHMT, SE, and HMT. Also, he has recently contributed as a journal reviewer to the International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer and Journal of Mechanical Engineering.
Honors and Awards
- Differential Fee Graduate Research Assistantship; University of Nevada, Reno, 2021-2022
- Best Poster Award (2nd place), ME Graduate Student Poster Contest, University of Nevada, Reno, 2022
- Best Poster Award (2nd place), ME Graduate Student Poster Contest, University of Nevada, Reno, 2023
Undergraduate Researchers
Alumni
Ph.D. Students
Dr. Tengfei Ma (2018-2022)
Dissertation: "Understand Lattice Thermal Transport in Hierarchical Structures"
Current Position: CGG, Houston
Notable Awards while at Our Group:
Best Poster Award (3rd-place, as 2nd author): MICRO-NANO Forum, ASME IMECE, 2022
Best Poster Award in Modeling: International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE), 2019.
Graduate Dean’s Merit Scholarship: University of Nevada, Reno, 2020-2021.
Dr. Pranay Chakraborty (2017-2021)
Dissertation: "Understanding Coherent and Incoherent Phonon Transport in Superlattices Towards Minimized Lattice Thermal Conductivity"
Current Position: Assistant Professor at Southern Arkansas University
Notable Awards while at Our Group:
Best Poster Award in Machine Learning: International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE), 2019.
Best Poster Award: GSA 2019 Fall Poster Symposium, University of Nevada, Reno, 2019.
Graduate Dean’s Merit Scholarship: University of Nevada, Reno, 2019-2020.
Master's Students
Connor Rock, "Microstructure Nanocomposites for Thermoelectrics," 2018-2019
Undergraduate Researchers
Notable Awards while at Our Group: NSF EPSCoR UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program) Scholarship for research on phonon transport in our group.
Mohammad Alhuwayer, "Nanoscale thermal transport in Lennard-Jones systems," 2018-2019
Mirica Krajewski, "Studying phase change process using differential scanning calorimetry," 2018-2019
Peter Chin, "Molecular dynamics simulations of thermal transport in polycrystals," 2017-2018
Sam Frost, "Atomistic simulation of thermal transport in polycrystals," 2016-2017
Postdoc Researchers
Dr. Ehsan Moshkelgosha joined our group (co-advised with Professor Lei Cao) in Summer 2021. He obtained his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Boise State University, Boise, in 2021. During his Ph.D. studies, he was working as a graduate research assistant in the Computational Materials Design (CMD) lab at Boise State University from 2018 to 2021. With a Master's and Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Ehsan has worked in the computational materials science area for 10 years. He is an expert in finite element modeling and numerical analysis in the area of materials science and mechanical engineering.
Visiting Scholars
Dr. Yancai Su was a visiting scholar in our group (2019-2020). She holds her position as a lecturer in the Qilu university of Technology, Jinan, China.