Biographies of Presenters
Kyle Niemeyer
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Oregon State University
Dr. Niemeyer is Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University. He leads the Niemeyer Research Group, which performs research into numerical modeling of reacting and non-reacting fluid systems, and also into using modern, highly parallel computing systems for tackling challenging problems related to energy and the environment.
Richard West
Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, Northeastern University
Dr. West is Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Graduate Studies in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University. He leads the Computational Modeling in Chemical Engineering (CoMoChEng) group, which performs research into the development of detailed microkinetic models for complex reacting systems, like combustion, heterogeneous catalysis, and bio-fuel processing.
China Hagström
Ph.D. candidate, Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
China is a Research Assistant at the Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment (LAE) at MIT. She received an Aerospace Engineering B.S. from UCLA in 2020. Before joining LAE, she worked as an undergraduate researcher in the Laser Diagnostics and Gas Dynamics Lab at UCLA studying hybrid rocket combustion using spectroscopic techniques. Her research focus is on improving Cantera to help create the first comprehensive analysis of the atmospheric impacts of current and future space launches.
Gandhali Kogekar
Postdoctoral research associate, Brown University
Gandhali is a postdoctoral research associate in Goldsmith group at Brown University. She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). Prior to joining CSM, she completed her master’s degree from Purdue University and was working at Reaction design (ANSYS Inc). Her research is focused on developing robust and computationally efficient models for non-ideal combustion and heterogeneous catalysis in chemical reactors.
Patrick Meagher
Ph.D. candidate, Mechanical Engineering, University of Connecticut
Patrick joined the Computational Thermal Fluids Laboratory at the University of Connecticut (CTF@UConn) in Spring 2019, working as an undergraduate research assistant. He then graduated from UConn as Summa Cum Laude and officially joined CTF@UConn as a graduate student in Fall 2020.