Group Members
Sachin Velankar
Sachin Velankar is a professor in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering with courtesy appointments in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, the Department of Bioengineering, and in the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine His research interests include polymer science, capillary phenomena, and the mechanics of soft materials.
Sudesna Banerjee
Sudesna is a doctoral student in the Chemical Engineering Research Program at the University of Pittsburgh and conducts experimental research on the co-crystallization of the polymer (polyoxacyclobutane) and water in the Soft Materials and Rheology Group. Before joining her doctoral study, Sudesna completed her undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the West Bengal University of Technology, India, and a dual master’s degree in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. Before moving to Pittsburgh, Sudesna worked in India as a process design engineer and was involved in projects that included grassroots complexes, plant revamps, debottlenecking and expansions, auxiliary facilities, technical services, consulting engineering & water research. Her Ph.D. research is supported by National Science Foundation (NSF).
Zach Kushnir
Zach Kushnir is a Senior undergraduate student in the Mechanical Engineering program at the University of Pittsburgh. Zach Kushnir is also a co-op student working on his third rotation as a mechanical engineering co-op student at Acutronic.
Fatemeh Rouhani
Fatemeh is a doctoral student in the Mechanical Engineering program at the University of Pittsburgh. Fatemeh completed her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Shiraz University, Iran, and her master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran. Her research focuses on experimental and finite element analysis of plastic behavior of materials.
Ryan MacElroy
Ryan is a senior chemical engineering undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include polymers and process intensification, and he plans to pursue a Ph.D. in chemical engineering after he graduates in 2023.
Nandan N. Pitre
Nandan is a doctoral student at University of Pittsburgh department of Bioengineering since 2019. Prior to this, Nandan completed his undergraduate (B.Tech) and masters (M.Tech) at Indian Institute of Technology Madras in the field of Engineering Design with specialization in Biomedical design. He also completed a masters (MS) in Biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Nandan’s research area is cardiovascular biomechanics. His current work is focused on vascular topography and development of synthetic tissue substitutes.
Chien Nguyen
Chien is a master student in Mechanical Engineering at University of Pittsburgh since 2021. He completed his Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2020. His research focuses on experimental analysis of programmable composite.
Jovina Vaswani
Jovina is a doctoral student in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Pittsburgh. She completed her undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay, India. Her research focuses on micromechanics of particle aggregates suspended in polymers.