GROUP

Amir Asadi

Assistant Professor at the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution

Dr. Asadi’s research interests encompass scalable processing/manufacturing of hybrid (micro/nano) composites with enhanced properties, additive manufacturing of strong hybrid polymer composites and fabricating biomedical polymer nanocomposites. He is especially interested in understanding underlying mechanisms at multiple length-scales to understand the formation of microstructure and interphase in hierarchical structures in order to develop capabilities to engineer the desired properties in composites.  In addition, he is interested in using cellulose nanomaterials along with other nanoparticles to provide scalable and sustainable solutions for composites with enhanced properties.

Shadi Shariatnia

PhD Student

Shadi started her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University in Summer 2018. Her research is focused on engineering the bottom-up fabrication of functional multi-material nanostructures that are created through evaporation induced self-assembly of nanocolloidal droplets. She has developed a novel atomization system for targeted delivery of nanoparticle carrier droplets, and the goal is to engineer the self-assembly of nano-colloids within each droplet to achieve the desired shape and properties in the final deposited nanostructure. Some of the main applications of this process that she has studied are delivering and tailoring the formation of Nanostructures in 3D printing, functional coatings, and electronics manufacturing. Shadi obtained her Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Houston in 2016.

Shadi will defend her PhD in October 2021 and will start her new role as product engineer at Amazon in Jan. 2022.

Ozge Kaynan

PhD Student

Ozge is a Ph.D. student at Materials Science and Engineering and a member of PCAM Lab since 2019. She is advised by Dr. Amir Asadi and Dr. Lisa Perez. Her research focuses on understanding the underlying mechanism of interfacial improvements in carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites by implementing advanced characterization techniques including SEM, TEM, Nano-IR, etc. as well as understanding the fundamental intermolecular interactions between hybrid nanostructures by DFT calculations. Ozge received her BSc and MSc degrees from Istanbul Technical University and worked at ITU Aerospace Research Center, where she gained years of experience with composite fabrication, characterization, and academic writing.

Mia Carrola

PhD Student

Mia started her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University in Fall 2021. Over the past year in her M.Sc. in Engineering Technology degree, she has worked closely with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) and has served two internships in the Composites Branch, working on several additive manufacturing projects. Her research focus is enabling additive manufacturing methods with custom, nanocomposite feedstock through means of high-performance polymers and various nanomaterials. The goal of her work is to create scalable and functional polymer composite feedstock that will improve the overall quality of printed parts.

Emile De Castro

PhD Student

Emile started his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University in Fall 2019. His research is focused on fast manufacturing  and characterization of thermoplastic composites with nanomaterial additives such carbon and boron nitride nanotubes so that the structural properties are maintained  and required functionalities are created during processing. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University in 2018.

Hamed Fallahi

PhD Student

Hamed started his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University in Spring 2021. He is performing molecular dynamics simulations and experiments to elucidate underlying mechanisms that give rise to mechanical and functional properties of hybrid (micro/nano) polymer composites. He is also working on developing novel scalable manufacturing techniques to tailor the microstructure in thermoplastic composites.

Behrooz Shirani Bidabadi

PhD Student

Behrooz started his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University in spring 2020. He received his MS degree from Northern Arizona University. His research is focused on interfacial crystallization behavior and mechanical properties of PEEK/Graphene nanocomposites and enhancing the electrical, thermal and energy storage properties of nanocomposites

Mohammad Aramfard

PhD Student

Mohammad started his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University in Summer 2018. His research focused on DFT and molecular dynamics simulation to understand the intermolecular interactions between constituents in hybrid polymer nanocomposites. He obtained his Master’s degree in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Manitoba, Canada in 2013.

Annuatha Kumar

MSc (Graduated)

Annuatha started her MSc in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University in fall 2017. Her research focused on scalable manufacturing of hybrid (micro/nano) CFRP composites with enhanced interlaminar strength using cellulose nanocrystals and carbon nanotubes. She was also working on fabrication of artificial cartilages enhanced with cellulose nanocrystals. Annuatha is currently working as an engineer at Schlumberger.