Carol Handwerker, a professor of materials engineering at Purdue University, is leading a project in which students and faculty will work together to make technology more sustainable. The project is funded by a $3.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

The ongoing trend of inter-disciplinary work here in the Materials Department continues with fourth
year Ph.D. candidate Alexandra Snyder. After obtaining her degree from the Chemistry Department at
Penn State University with a specialization in Polymer Science, Alex found an ideal fit with Professor Lia
Stanciu and her research group in the area of biosensors. Taking advantage of support from the United
States Department of Education’s GAANN Fellowship she has had opportunities to collaborate with
research groups both inside the department via Professor Martinez and Professor Moon and also with
those in Mechanical (Professor Nauman) and Biomedical Engineering here at Purdue.

Fourth year Ph.D. candidate Chris Fancher, who received his B.S. in Multi-Disciplinary Engineering from Purdue in 2009, traveled to Germany for a summer internship at the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Research focuses on the development of thermodynamic and kinetic theories, models, and algorithms to realize improved portable and stationary energy storage technology.

Solid-state energy conversion devices, as a class, offer improved reliability, smaller size and reduced environmental impact as compared to established technologies such as incandescent lighting and compressor-based refrigeration.