Lori Groven

Research Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Lori Groven received B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering in 2002 and 2007, respectively, at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. As a NSF graduate fellow, she completed her Ph.D. in nanoscience and nanoengineering also at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in 2009.

Her interdisciplinary research interests lie in the combustion, characterization, processing, and improvement of tailored materials, ranging from traditional materials to nanoscale energetics, for a variety of applications. She also has worked on developing carbon nanotube based countermeasures, solution-combustion synthesis, advanced propellants, and spray pyrolysis to form niobate-based oxides.

Before joining Purdue, she studied high-permittivity, low-loss materials that were amenable to direct write at the Laboratory for Applied Electromagnetics and Communications.

Liang Pan

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Liang Pan received his B.S. and M.E. in mechanics and mechanical engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from University of California at Berkeley.

He recently served as a postdoctoral researcher in the National Science Foundation’s Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center for Scalable and Integrated Nanomanufacturing.

Jitesh Panchal

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Jitesh Panchal received his BTech from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati in 2000, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in 2003 and 2005, respectively.  Before joining Purdue, he was an assistant professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University.  

His research interests are in computational design of complex engineering systems with a focus on collective systems innovation, and integrated products and materials design. He is a co-author of the book Integrated Design of Multiscale, Multifunctional Materials and Products. He is a recipient of NSF CAREER award for his research on collective innovation, among others.

Justin Weibel

Research Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Justin Weibel received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Purdue in 2012. 

His research focuses on two-phase electronics cooling and packaging solutions; heat pipe testing, modeling, and design; and thermal system analysis for energy efficiency. 

He recently received the 2011 ASME Electronic & Photonic Packaging Division Student Member of the Year Award in recognition of a student who has excelled in research and shown promise to be a strong contributor in the field of electronic and photonic packaging.