Group

Principal Investigator

Bio: Andrej Lenert is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan. He earned a BS at the University of Iowa in 2008 and MS and Ph.D. degrees at MIT in 2010 and 2014, where he worked under the supervision of Evelyn N. Wang. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan (UofM) prior to joining the Chemical Engineering faculty in 2016. The efforts of his research group (https://lenert.engin.umich.edu/) are focused on the fundamental design and development of nanophotonic materials that control the direction and wavelength of thermal transport by radiation. He is particularly interested in developing technology that enables equitable decarbonization of the grid and industrial processes. His group currently works on thermal photovoltaics for grid storage using thermal batteries, transparent aerogel materials for solar industrial process heat, and nanophotonic materials for environmental sensing and photochemical synthesis. Dr. Lenert is the recipient of several awards including the NSF CAREER Award, the UofM Henry Russel Award, and the College of Engineering 1938E Award. He currently serves as the Department Recruiting Chair, a member of the Chair’s Advisory Committee, and a member of the Lurie Nanofabrication Council.

Graduate Students

Undergraduate Students

Group Alumni

Postdocs

Ali Davoodabadi, 2021–2022 (Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, SUNY Binghamton)
Current Position: Universal Instruments Corporation

Venkata Yarlagadda, 2018–2021 (Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Kansas)
Current Position: GM Research

PhD

Alexander Hill, Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2022 (Summer)
Thesis: “Controlling Nanoscale Restructuring to Improve Catalyst Activity, Stability, and Material Utilization”
Current Position: NREL

Zachary Berquist, Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2022 (Summer)
Thesis: “Developing Thermally Robust Aerogels for Next-Generation Linear Solar Receivers”
Current Position: NREL

Tobias Burger, Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2021 (Fall)
Thesis: “Eliminating out-of-band loss in thermophotovoltaic systems utilizing cell-side spectral control”
Current Position: SolAero Technologies

Hannah Kim, Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2021 (Winter)
Thesis: “Tailoring optical and thermal properties of nanostructured materials for passive radiative cooling”
Current Position: Leadership Development Program, BASF

Masters

Ziting Fan, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2018 – 2019
Current Position: PhD Student, National University of Singapore
Krutarth Dhananjay Jhaveri, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2017 – 2018
Current Position: Environmental Engineer, Apple Inc. 
Yulei Zhang, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2016­ – 2017
Current Position: PhD Student, ChE, U Michigan

Undergraduate

Nadine El Ghaffir, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2022
Current Position: TBD
Rachel Fetter, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2021-2022
Current Position: PhD Student, ChE, University of Virginia
Zhewen Deng, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2020-2021
Current Position: PhD Student, Nanoengineering, UCSD
Spencer Cira, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2020-2021
Current Position: PhD Student, ChE, U Washington
Oluka Okia, Case Western Reserve University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2020­ (SROP) – 2021
Current Position: PhD Student, ME, U Michigan
Kevin Turaczy, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2019
Current Position: PhD Student, ChE, Columbia University
Brendon Brown, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2019
Current Position: Engineer, Trucent Separation Technologies
Apoorva Gupta, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (Pilani, India), Department of Chemical Engineering, 2019
Current Position: Graduate Student, UCSD
Caroline Sempere, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2018­ – 2019
Current Position: Wells Engineer, ExxonMobil
Michael Veksler, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2018­ – 2019
Current Position: PhD Student, ChE, U Michigan
Alejandro Owen Aquino, Case Western Reserve University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2018 (SROP)
Current Position: PhD Student, ME, Georgia Tech.
Silva Zhang, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2018
Vinod K. Raman, U Michigan, Departments of Chemical Engineering and Computer Science, 2017­ – 2019
Current Position: PhD Student, Statistics, U Michigan
Brandon Woo, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2017­ – 2018
Current Position: Staff Member, Lurie Nanofabrication Facility
Allison Goss, U Michigan, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2017