Experts expanding the reach of engineering research

Addressing global challenges requires a strong team, and the work that occurs between the formation of an idea and the presentation of a solution demands skilled hands.

Many of the research faculty who direct labs at Virginia Tech have projects in motion with the potential of making a better world, but that research requires extensive trial and error. To best complete the work that happens between the beginning and the end of those projects, the engagement of skilled experts is essential. 

Those same skilled experts also bring mastery into the sphere of educating, standing beside students at a lab bench or lending their knowledge to the next generation of engineers and scientists. 

A little more than 5 percent of all employees at Virginia Tech are identified as a postdoctoral associate, research associate, research assistant professor, or postdoctoral associate. Some are attached to specific projects; others work broadly with faculty who are managing a large portfolio.  

In most cases, the work comes after acquiring a doctorate in the field, so expertise is firmly established. These are critical positions in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, which hosts more than 30 labs that push the boundaries of innovation through funded research from agencies both domestic and international. Two people working in that realm are Amanda Leong and Sibin Kunhi Purayil.

The nuclear option: Amanda Leong 

The nuclear engineering program within the mechanical engineering department has several labs in Blacksburg, and two of them house the work of Professor Jinsuo Zhang. To manage multiple projects and students at two sites, Zhang relies on Research Assistant Professor Amanda Leong. 

Leong came to Virginia Tech after finishing her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Ohio State, jumping straight into the doctoral program in the College of Engineering with Zhang. She had started with Zhang’s lab when both were in Ohio, where she first started working in nuclear engineering. 

She followed the research to Virginia, completing her Ph.D. and learning her way around Blacksburg labs. Her own research focus is on energy, particularly the area of material corrosion in advanced nuclear reactors and the use of molten salt as a fuel or coolant in energy plants.  

In her role as a research assistant professor, Leong mentors two senior design teams with projects in her area of expertise, one in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and one in the Department of Material Science and Engineering. In addition to those teams, she co-supervises the lab’s students’ and postdocs’ research and helps address questions as they arise. She also serves as main advisor to an undergraduate research team. 

“Dr. Leong does the work of the lab directly,” said Zhang. “Because of her work, we are able to get solutions more quickly when students have issues or problems or when they develop new ideas and new research directions." 

She also has continued her own investigations and an increase in the number of published papers that she has produced has followed. 

“When you’re a student, you usually just work on one project,” Leong said. “I oversee several.” 

With her background in the field, Leong also helps analyze the data coming from the team’s research, quickly filtering issues that could derail the learning process so that students can more easily interpret what they’re seeing. 

“Because I was exposed to research earlier, I pick up some things that newer people might not be able to see,” she said. “I really enjoy teaching students, seeing their light bulbs come on. I love solving problems together.” 

Leong is enjoying the work she has found in Zhang’s lab, and her hopeful long-term plan is to find her way to a tenure-track research and teaching position. 

Bringing solar energy home: Sibin Kunhi Purayil

Sometimes, a research scientist with specialized skills is needed for a specific project. This is how Sibin Kunhi Purayil came to work for Ranga Pitchumani, the George R. Goodson Professor of Mechanical Engineering, in the Advanced Materials and Technologies Laboratory. 

Purayil earned his Ph.D. in India and worked at the National Aerospace Laboratory before being recruited for Pitchumani’s solar energy research at Virginia Tech. Pitchumani is editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Solar Energy and was chief scientist of the SunShot Initiative, a federal grant challenge aimed at making solar energy more widely instituted. 

Pitchumani received funding in 2018 from the U.S. Department of Energy for a new project to develop high efficiency solar absorber coatings viable at high temperatures, and it was a perfect fit for Purayil’s skill set.  

The young scientist spent a lot of time during his 2019 postdoctoral work developing nanometer-thick flexible, transparent, and conductive coatings. These could be used for space, flexible electronics, and solar energy applications employing sophisticated thin film deposition techniques, and he was eager for new opportunities. 

Purayil sought a position that would allow him to continue making contributions to the greater environmental good: reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that can result from energy production.  

“My goal was to, in my way, reduce carbon emission and work toward global carbon neutrality,” Purayil said. “This project has a lot of possibilities, and if we can improve the solar absorber’s efficiency, it could make a significant contribution to that cause.” 

Pitchumani’s project – involving harvesting solar thermal energy at high temperatures with high efficiency - was a great match for Purayil’s goal. Purayil used a novel approach utilizing highly textured, high-temperature-stable solar absorber coatings designed to operate at temperatures exceeding 750 degrees celsius in an air atmosphere. The coatings they chose were made through cost-effective and industrially viable deposition techniques, meaning the technology will be more readily transferable from lab to practice.  

Purayil’s prior work with coatings and materials had equipped him with the experience Pitchumani needed. Together they have created the most efficient absorber of solar energy for high temperature solar thermal processes, be it power generation, providing industrial process heat, or producing solar fuels, all contributing to a decarbonized future — and to Purayil’s professional goals. Pitchumani and Purayil have filed for a patent on this innovation. 

Better results through expert teams 

One of the advantages of the research enterprise at Virginia Tech lies in its blend of experts with budding inventors. By employing specialists who both innovate and teach, a full body of knowledge is being passed on to the next generation of engineers. 

In the cases of Leong and Purayil, both have had the opportunity to take their proven acumen in academics to the next level, giving back to learning, and building their own body of work. Working beside professors with long histories in their fields provides insights for how that body of work fits into the bigger picture while finding solutions to the world’s most complex problems.