News archive

Engineering communications recently ran a survey on whose socks were shown in this picture; apparently Patty’s affinity to animal-themed and other fun socks isn’t a very well known fact yet… let’s change that!

Great times in the Thermal Fluids Group: 1) Minrak passed his Qualifying Exams and is now officially a PhD candidate – congratulations!! 2) Patty got promoted to Associate Professor with tenure

We welcome three summer students this year: Aisha, Nick, and Matthew – WELCOME!!

Patty received a 3-year AFOSR (Air Force) YIP award on the topic “Laser-based additive manufacturing of compositionally graded polyether ether ketone (PEEK) nano-composites“. For more information, see here (AFOSR) or here (McKelvey).

We have six new lab members join this Fall: Minrak (PhD), Ruikang (MS), Alejandro, Lilly, Mark, and Ranch (UGs) – WELCOME!!! Also welcome back to Abenezer and Kiersten!

Four lab members, including 1st year PhD student Kiersten, recently graduated undergraduate Steve, former PhD student Jianxing, and PI Patty, gave oral presentations at this year’s ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference, which was held in Washington DC. Congratulations on a successful conference!

Abenezer presented his first conference poster at this year’s 3rd micro Flow and Interfacial Phenomena (µFIP) Conference, which was held at Northwestern University. Congratulations!

This summer, 5 undergraduate students are conducting a summer internship in our lab. A big welcome to Andres Grajales, Jaime De Mora, Steve Park, Josh Towns, and Varad Sardeshpande!

Jianxing and Junhui came back for their hooding as part of the 2023 Commencement Ceremonies. It was so good to have them back on campus!

Another successful thesis defense – CONGRATULATIONS to Junhui. He will be joining NIO in San Jose, CA at the end of September.

CONGRATULATIONS to Jianxing for successfully defending his PhD thesis. Next step: Postdoc at UMich in Dr. Anish Tuteja’s lab.

Patty received a 3-year research award from NSF to study the condensation dynamics of refrigerant mixtures. More information on this project can be found here.

CONGRATULATIONS!! Three current and former lab members received the prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship Award: current rotation student Dean Ryan-Simmons, former undergraduate researcher Angelo Hawa, and former summer intern Jillian Anderson.

We have 6 students join the lab this Spring: Dean, Amir, and Abenezer will be doing their Spring rotation (PhD), Xitong will start with research for her MS thesis, and Kiersten and Steve are doing an independent study. Welcome to the lab (which will be way more crowded that in this picture – that’s what […]

Jianxing’s paper on the influence of lubricant viscosity on nucleation dynamics and droplet movement during condensation on lubricant-infused surfaces (LIS) was published in Langmuir. Congratulations!

PhD students Jianxing Sun and Junhui Li (pictured) presented their work to the Jubel Family and Spartan Light Metal board members and explained the positive impacts the makerspace has on their research projects.

Congratulations to Junhui: His paper on droplet/bubble dynamics and heat transfer during low-Weber number droplet impact was just published in Experimental Thermal Fluid Sciences.

Hailey joins us this semester as PhD rotation student – welcome!!

Kiersten Horton and Vanessa Wergin are joining us through undergraduate summer research programs (Vanessa via REU and Kiersten via WUSEF). Welcome to the lab!!

Shawn Pavey joins the lab as PhD research rotation student. He will be working on a pore-scale fluidic and thermal characterization of liquid-liquid two-phase flow through porous media. Welcome!

Patty received a 5-year NSF CAREER award on the topic “Understanding thermal phase change processes in metal additive manufacturing“. For more information, see here (NSF) or here (McKelvey).

Sida passed his MS thesis defense with the title: “Impact and melting dynamics of micron-sized particles on a liquid pool”. Congratulations!

Patty was one of the three McKelvey recipients of the 2020 Emerson “Excellence in Teaching” awards. The Center for Teaching and Learning also published a faculty spotlight article on Patty’s teaching. UIUC (where Patty received her PhD) also wrote an article about this award.

Our two fantastic undergrads Jacob and Angelo have published their work on pool boiling heat transfer and issues of scaling in contaminated water in the proceedings of the 2020 ASME ICNMM/SHTC/FEDSM joint conference. Congratulations!

During the joint ICNMM/SHTC/FEDSM conference, which was held virtually 7/13-15, Patty received the ASME ICNMM Outstanding Early Career Researcher Award 2020, “for her work in developing fundamental understanding of the phase change heat transfer on nanoengineered surfaces, as well as her work on interfacial phenomena and droplet dynamics”: Engineering News

Congratulations to Wenliang: His paper on impact dynamics and heat transfer during droplet impact on wettability-patterned surfaces was just published in Physics of Fluids.

Congratulations! Both of our graduating seniors, Shuhan and Jacob, have been received departmental awards (outstanding dual-degree or transfer student award and outstanding senior award, respectively), and will be starting their PhD studies in August. Thank you for your contributions to our research group, and good luck in your future research!

Congratulations to Xinyu Jiang for passing his MS thesis defense today on “Nucleation Dynamics for Water Condensation on Hydrophobic Surfaces in the Presence of Non-Condensable Gases”

CONGRATULATIONS!! Jacob Graham, the lab’s most senior undergrad researcher (2 1/2 years) was awarded the prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship. He will be joining Northwestern University to pursue his PhD studies in Mechanical Engineering. Good luck, have fun, and we will miss you!

Wenliang’s and Junhui’s work on the influence of substrate orientation on evaporation heat transfer has been published in Langmuir. Congratulations!

Patty just got featured on the alumni-news website of MechSE @ U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Petroleum Research Fund has awarded Patty a 2-year grant to study the coupling of heat transfer and fluid flow in 2D microporous media.

Kate’s paper on melting and impact dynamics of ice particles on a heated water bath was just published in IJHMT. It elucidates the coupling of heat transfer and fluid dynamic for metallic additive manufacturing processes. CONGRATULATIONS!!

Patty received a NASA Early Career Faculty Award to study and develop a passive and compact liquid metal based heat switch. More information on the proposed technology can be found here and in an article featured in WashU Engineering News.

Recently, Patty was awarded a 3-year NSF grant to study nucleation and condensation dynamics of water droplets on lubricant-infused surfaces (LIS). Fundamental insights gained from this research will benefit the efficiency and durability of (power plant) condensers and water harvesting systems. The abstract to the award can be found here.

Jianxing, Vivek, and Patty (representing Kate) presented their work on dropwise condensation on LIS and ice particle melting in heated water baths at this year’s ASME International Conference for Nano-, Micro-, and Mini-Channels (ICNMM) in St. John’s, NL.

CONGRATULATIONS to Jianxing for his 1st place “Best Poster Award” at this year’s ASME ICNMM in St. John’s, NL. Keep up the good work!

Tuesday was a busy day as we moved into our new lab in Jubel Hall 233. We are super excited about the proximity of lab and office space, and the fabulous view from the lab windows.

Jianxing’s paper on the mobility of microdroplets during dropwise condensation on lubricant-infused surfaces was published in Soft Matter – CONGRATULATIONS!!

Here is a preview of our new lab in Jubel Hall. Move-in is expected to happen end of May. We’re super excited about our new space (maybe not so much the move itself, but definitely the new lab itself)!

BIG CONGRATULATIONS to Andreea and Jianxing for passing their qualifying exams. They are official PhD candidates now. Way to go!

Part of Patty’s PhD work, in collaboration with Tianyu Yang et al., on a liquid metal based thermal switch has been published in APL. It is also featured at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) College of Engineering website.

The final project of Patty’s PhD work on droplet impact on vibrating superhydrophobic surfaces has been published in PRF.

We have our third PhD rotation student join the lab – welcome Andreea!

We have our second PhD rotation student join the lab – welcome Jianxing!

We have our first PhD rotation student join the lab – welcome Junhui!

Our new lab space in Whitaker 245 is ready for move-in. Let the research begin!

Part of Patty’s PhD work on the distribution of droplet sizes during dropwise condensation on lubricant-inflused surfaces (LIS or SLIPS) has been published in IJHMT.

The newest POETS (Center for Power Optimization of Electro-Thermal Systems) newlsetter (Fall 2016) featured an interview with Patty on her research career, motivation, and goals. POETS Newsletter 3-2016