University of Houston, the Energy University has introduced the inaugural cohort of UH-Chevron Energy Graduate Fellows. Eight students who have been involved in innovative energy-related research across the university campus have won the fellowship. Out of the eight students, four are of Indian origin— Aparajita Datta, Chirag Goel, Swapnil Sharma and Meghana Idamakanti The fellowship is funded by Chevron and it supports graduate students’ research efforts through the fellowship of $12,000 for the course of one year. It includes mentoring by faculty experts and an opportunity to engage with experts at Chevron. “We love that Chevron is sponsoring this group of fellows because it’s a fantastic way for us to get involved with the students who are working on some of the biggest problems we’ll face in society,” said Chevron Technology Ventures President Jim Gable. Meet the students Aparajita Datta is a political science PhD candidate, her research focuses on the intersection of energy, climate and redistributive policies in the US along with socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity in American politics. The proposal she submitted focuses on the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), a redistributive welfare policy designed to help households pay their energy bills. “My research is centred around exploring the impact of LIHEAP’s administrative burden on program participation and the strategies that can reduce this burden for racial minorities,” said Datta, whose motivation came from her past work evaluating the impact of state climate policies on household energy burden across socioeconomic groups. Chirag Goel is a doctoral student who has been fascinated by the nuclear fusion reactions that power the sun and stars and has been driven to replicate a similar process on Earth. “High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) present the opportunity to achieve carbon-free economies by 2050,” Goel said. “My research focuses on upscaling high-performance ReBCO (Rare-earth Barium Copper Oxide) HTS tapes and optimizing manufacturing processes. The goal is to enable the widespread application of HTS in clean energy systems,” said Goel. Meghana Idamakanti is a third year PhD student at the William A Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Her research focuses on material aspects and intrinsic kinetic analysis of electrically heated steam methane reforming for cleaner hydrogen production. Swapnil Sharma is also a PhD student in the same department. He is working with Professor Vemuri Balakotaiah. It is being funded by the US Department of Energy, it focuses on the thermal modelling of large scale liquid hydrogen storage tanks. “The UH-Chevron Energy Fellowship program is an exciting opportunity for our graduate students to research the many critical areas that impact the energy industry, our communities and our global competitiveness,” said Vice President for Energy and Innovation Ramanan Krishnamoorti. “Today's students not only recognise the importance of energy, but they are actively driving the push for affordable, reliable, sustainable and secure energy and making choices that clearly indicate that they are meaningfully contributing to the change," Krishnamoorti said. Others who received the fellowship include Kripa Adhikari, Erin Picton, Mohamad Sarhan, and Larkin Spires. The selected fellows will engage with Chevron subject matter experts on a quarterly basis and participate in educational and research engagements organised by UH Energy throughout the year. They will submit quarterly progress reports and may have opportunities to contribute to energy-related blogs and thought leadership pieces, the release said.
