The team
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ESDLab Team, July 2023 |
| Not in the photo: Vaishnavi Kale, Michael Moore, Jake Mouallem. |
Academic staff
Principal investigator
Dr. Marc Secanell
Marc Secanell is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada, and the director of the Energy Systems Design Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Victoria, Canada, in 2008 and 2004, respectively. He holds a B.Eng. degree (2002) from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (BarcelonaTech). In 2008, he was an Assistant Research Officer at the National Research Council of Canada, Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation in Vancouver, Canada and in 2015-16 he was a visiting research scholar in the Energy Conversion Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, US. His research interests are in the areas of: a) analysis and computational design of energy systems, such as polymer electrolyte fuel cells, polymer electrolyzers, flywheels and cooling towers; b) fabrication and characterization of polymer electrolyte fuel cells and electrolyzers; c) finite element analysis; and, d) multidisciplinary design optimization. His current research projects include the development of the open-source Fuel Cell Simulation Toolbox (OpenFCST), an open-source framework to analyze fuel cells, the development of mathematical models and optimization strategies for cooling towers and high-speed composite flywheels, and the fabrication and characterization of low loading polymer electrolyte fuel cells and electrolyzers. He has authored over 50 journal articles, 30 conference proceedings and two book chapters receiving over 2,500 citations (h-index: 31 in Google Scholar). He has been an invited speaker at prestigious conferences such as the Electrochemical Society Meeting and the Gordon Research Conference in Fuel Cells. He has received several awards including University of Alberta, Faculty of Engineering Teaching Award (2020), Excellence in Engineering Research Award (2018), the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) Early Accomplishment Award (2013) and a Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Canada Scholarship (2007). He is the co-chair of the 2022 GRC Fuel Cell conference. |
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Graduate students
Post-doctoral fellows
Vaishnavi Kale
Vaishnavi completed her Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore in 2011. Upon completion of her studies, she worked at Mercedes Benz Research & Development in embedded control software development and validation of automated manual transmission, heat pump and energy management. She also worked at SEDEMAC Mechatronics, where she developed control software for integrated starter generator (ISG) and ignition in single cylinder engines used in motorbikes. She joined the University of Alberta in Fall 2016 to pursue a Master's degree under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell and transferred to a Ph.D. program in 2017, which she completed in 2022. Her research was focused on flywheel optimization and control of flywheel energy storage systems. She is currently continuing her research as a postdoctoral fellow. |
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Ali Mohammadtabar
Ali received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Mazandaran University in Iran. He then received his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the Azad University- Tehran branch in Iran for his work on improving the heat transfer rate in a cooling system using nanofluids. Ali completed his Ph.D. at the University of Alberta in the department of Mechanical Engineering. His research was primarily focused on the numerical investigation of thermal-driven thin film instabilities. The objective of his Ph.D. work was to fabricate micro/nano-sized patterns on the polymer surface using the thermal-induced patterning technique. Currently, he is working as a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell and Dr. Jason Olfert, and will be working on the development of the thermal decomposition simulation module for OpenFCST.
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Aslan Kosakian
Aslan received his B.Sc.+M.Sc. equivalent in Applied Mathematics from Bauman Moscow State Technical University in 2014. He completed an internship at Siemens Russia where he was working on modeling of phase-change-material-based latent heat storages. Aslan completed his Ph.D. at the University of Alberta in the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Mathematical and Statistical Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell and Prof. Peter Minev. His research was primarily focused on the transient numerical modeling of proton-exchange-membrane fuel cells. Aslan is currently continuing his research as a postdoctoral fellow. |
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Doctoral students
Jiafei Liu
Jiafei received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Dalian University of Technology in 2019. During her studies, she mainly focused on synthesis and experimental tests of anion exchange membranes for fuel cell. Currently, she is pursuing her Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Secanell with a CSC scholarship and is working on numerical modelling of anion exchange membrane fuel cell and its optimization.
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Mohamad Ghadban
Mohamad received his Bachelor of Engineering (BE) in Mechanical Engineering from Beirut Arab University in 2016. He interned at Associated Mechanical Engineers (AME) where his tasks involved mechanical building design particularly HVAC and plumbing design. He then joined the Mechanical Engineering program at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and obtained his Master of Engineering (ME) degree in 2018 where his research in the energy and pollution group involved quantifying key urban parameters relevant to the urban heat island in Beirut city and implementing a downscaling model that is capable of downscaling a velocity field from the scale of 1 km to the scale of 1 m using the Finite Element Method and mass conservation as a constraint. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell where his research involves developing a transient pore-scale simulation framework that is integrated with statistical reconstruction algorithms to study the effect of electrode microstructures on transport and electrochemical performance in PEFCs and LIBs.
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Ambuj Punia
Ambuj received his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical and Automation Engineering, and worked at Trident India Limited in the Energy division for 1 year and 2 months. He then joined Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee for pursuing his Master's degree specialising in Solar Thermal Energy Storage Systems. After completing his Master's, he worked as a Research Assistant at Indian Institute of Science Bangalore for a period of 6 months. The research group work involved molten salt thermocline energy storage using thermosyphoning effect with the help of nanoparticles. Currently, he is working as a graduate student under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell and Dr. Jason Olfert, and will be working on the numerical modelling of thermal decomposition of methane using solar central towers.
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Michael Moore
Michael received his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Dublin University, Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. He then received his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta in 2012 for his work on multi-step oxygen reduction reaction kinetics mathematical modeling. He spent two years working at Intelligent Energy in Loughborough, U.K. where he was a research engineer in the stack development department. He has now returned to the University of Alberta to complete his PhD thesis, where he will be working on the development of an electrolyzer model using OpenFCST.
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Luis Padilla Urbina
Luis has a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi in Mexico. He received his M.Sc. in Mining Engineering in 2016 at the Metallurgy Institute, also from the UASLP, where he worked as assistant researcher in the experimental testing and computational analysis of wastewater treatment processes by electrochemical methods. He started his Ph.D. program in 2017 under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell in the EDSLab and will focus his research on the fabrication, testing and design optimization of low Pt loading unitized regenerative fuel cells.
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Research Associates
Masters students
Jake Mouallem
Jake graduated with a BSc in Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Mathematics from the University of Alberta in 2022. As a part of the coop program he had an internship at Defense Research and Development Canada, where he researched explosive bubble collapses and assisted with explosion bulge testing of submarine armour. He will be starting graduate school in pursuit of his Master's Degree under Dr. Marc Secanell. Jake will be working on the modelling of Anion Exchange Membranes in openFCST.
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Eric Beaulieu
Eric graduated from the University of Alberta in 2020 with a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering. He has previously conducted research on CO2 reduction catalysts which will be used in the process for creating solar fuels and he has assisted in the testing of thin film nanocomposite membranes for water filtration at varying temperatures. His current interests are in fuels and energy systems. Currently, Eric is working towards a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell and Dr. Steven Bergens. Eric will be working on fabrication and testing of iridium catalysts in fuel cells with an acidic electrolyte.
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Visiting students
Maximillian Sell
Max was working from September 2023 for 6 months at ESDLab. He was doing his internship from the University of Mannheim for Applied Sciences. He worked as a visiting researcher under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell. Max was studying the liquid water breakthrough, water saturation and water intrusion porosimetry of Sigracet GDM with an ex-situ experimental approach. He mostly ran tests with different materials. He continued the work of Daniel Ziegler, who was at ESDLab in 2019. After his visit, Max will work on his undergraduate thesis in Chemical Engineering at the University Mannheim.
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