People

Dr. Marc Secanell

Principal Investigator

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.

Ali Mohammadtabar

Post-doctoral Fellow

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.

Aslan Kosakian

Post-doctoral Fellow

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.

Dr. Alexandre Jarauta Arabi

Post-doctoral Fellow

Dr. Alex Jarauta obtained his Master’s degree in Numerical Methods for Engineering in 2013 under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell and Dr. Jordi Pons (CIMNE, Barcelona). He received his Ph.D. in March 2016 from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) under the supervision of Dr. Pavel Ryzhakov (UPC) and Dr. Jordi Pons, in collaboration with the ESDLab and the iSSELab (University of Alberta). He worked at the ESDLab as a Postdoctoral Fellow with an NSERC Collaborative Research and Development grant, where he focused his research on novel formulations for droplet dynamics analysis in fuel cell gas channels and the development of mass transport models for gas mixtures in porous media. Alex is currently working as a Software Developer at Altair Engineering Inc. in Barcelona, Spain.

Dr. Valentin Zingan

Post-doctoral Fellow

Dr. Valentin received his Master of Science degree in nuclear engineering from Moscow State Engineering Physics Institute in May 2001. He began working on a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering in September 2008 at Texas A&M, and finished in March 2012. He worked in ESDLab as a post doctoral fellow. His work was focused on modelling transport equations for porous media, including the effects of diffusion and convection, using continuous Galerkin finite elements. Valentin is currently workin at MAYA Heat Transfer Technologies Ltd. in Montreal, Canada.

Dr. Xuehai Tan

Post-doctoral Fellow

Dr. Tan got obtained his B.Sc. degree in Engineering Physics (Nano-engineering Option) from the University of Alberta in 2009 and completed his Ph.D. in Materials Engineering at the University of Alberta in 2015. His research experiences include hydrogen storage in Mg-based alloys and composites, Pt-based electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction, Sn-Sb as sodium ion battery anode, CdTe thin film photovoltaic devices and materials. Dr. Tan’s research project was the analysis of Ir-based electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction.

Vaishnavi Kale

Post-doctoral Fellow

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.

Ambuj Punia

Doctoral Student

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.

Dr. Shantanu Shukla

Doctoral Student

Dr. Shukla obtained his M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering in 2009 from Carnegie Mellon University and completed his Ph.D. in experimental analysis of inkjet printed fuel cell electrodes under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell from University of Alberta in 2016. As a MITACS post-doctoral fellow, Shantanu was working on the effect of pore-formers, performance degradation and visualization studies on controlled microstructure fuel cell electrodes, spending 50% of his time at the Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation (AFCC) in Burnaby, BC. Shantanu is currently working at ZincNyx Energy Solutions, Inc. in Vancouver, BC.

Elaf N. Mahrous

Doctoral Student

Elaf received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Mineral (KFUPM) in 2009. He has nine years of experience in oil and gas industries, working for Sauid Aramco and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) as rotating equipment engineer. During his working experience, Elaf received his Master degree in Business of Administration (MBA) from Open Malaysian University (Bahrain Branch) specialized in Project Management. He was working on his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Secanell. He was focusing on generating and verifying a numerical modeling code for multi-phase flows using an Eulerian and Lagrangian approaches with an application of a conventional meso-scale drop-on-demand, piezoelectric, inkjet printing.

Fei Wei

Doctoral Student

Fei Wei received his M.Sc. in Power Engineering and Engineering Thermophysics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in July 2017. During his Masters studies, he mainly focused on the thermal control and design of aerospace systems. After obtaining his Masters degree, he came to University of Alberta and joined the ESDLab in Fall 2017 under a CSC scholarship. He completed his Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Secanell in October 2023. His research was focused on experimental analysis of mass transport in low platinum loading polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, with special attention to water transport.

Himanshi Dhawan

Doctoral Student

Himanshi received her B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering in 2018 from the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, India where she worked as an undergraduate researcher in the field of Microbial Fuel Cells. Her research at the University of Alberta was focused on developing Ir-based catalysts for Oxygen Evolution Reaction within the framework of Future Energy Systems – Grids and Storage. This project was carried out in collaboration with Prof. Natalia Semagina and co-supervised by Prof. Secanell.

Jiafei Liu

Doctoral Student

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.

Jie Zhou

Doctoral Student

Jie Zhou received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Dalian University of Technology in 2012. He has one year of industry experience from the Michelin. Jie was working on his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Secanell and defended his thesis in May 2018. He was focusing on porous material characterization and building a non-isothermal, two-phase transport model based on the pore size distribution from the experimental results (MIP and BET) of porous media in an MEA. Jie is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, USA.

Lalit Pant

Doctoral Student

Lalit received his Bachelors of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2009. He joined Energy Systems Design Lab in 2009 as a M.Sc. student, and received his M.Sc. in 2011. In his M.Sc, he worked on experimental and theoretical studies on mass transport in PEFC diffusion media. He continued with in ESDL as a Ph.D. student and got his PhD in January 2016. In his Ph.D., he worked on numerical stochastic reconstruction of three-dimensional porous media structures for understanding pore scale mass transport. Lalit is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, USA.

Luis Padilla Urbina

Doctoral Student

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.

Manas Mandal

Doctoral Student

Manas received his Bachelors and Masters of Technology in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 2009. Before coming to the University of Alberta, he gained experience in modeling and simulations from working in industry. He was a project engineer at Industrial Research Centre and Consultancy, IIT Bombay, where he worked on modelling and simulation of a simulated moving bed (SMB). After that he went to Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India where he was a lead engineer. He worked there on modeling and simulating a catalytic converter and ion exchanger, and a fuel cell system in AspenPlus. As well, he developed a graphical user interface for the AspenPlus fuel cell simulation. During this time, his work resulted in a few patents for Mercedes-Benz. Manas finished his PhD on understanding the physical phenomena limiting the inkjet printed PEM water electrolyzer performance under the supervision of Dr. Secanell. Currently, he is working as a Electrolyzer Research Scientist at Cummins Inc.

Mayank Sabharwal

Doctoral Student

Mayank received his Bachelors of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science-Pilani in 2011. Upon completion of his undergraduate studies, he has worked for Mercedes-Benz Research & Development India in the field of fuel cell system modeling and subsequently on the fuel cell catalyst modeling and characterization. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Secanell. His current work involves characterization and reconstruction of microstructures. Further, he is involved in modeling transport and electrochemical reactions in the catalyst layer and development of a multi-scale framework for coupling microscale and macroscale simulations.

Michael Moore

Doctoral Student

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.

Mohamad Ghadban

Doctoral Student

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.

Yash Kothari

Doctoral Student

Yash earned his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Gujarat Technological University, India. He worked as a Graduate Engineer at Kavit Polybind Private Ltd. for a year. He then completed his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta in 2024, where his research was focused on numerical modeling of multiphase fluid flows. Currently, Yash is a Research Assistant under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell. His work involves conducting through-plane and in-plane electrical conductivity experiments. Additionally, he is contributing to the development of fluid flow modules in OpenFCST.

Andrea Quintero

Master's Student

Andrea completed her Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from the Technological University of Panama in 2022, during her education she also completed an internship in the department of Environment and Forest Resources in University of Castilla La Mancha, Spain. Following graduation, she worked for one and a half years at ZPMC Panama as a Project Assistant, focusing on maintenance projects for different ports across Latin America and the Caribbean. In Winter 2023, Andrea joined the University of Alberta to pursue a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell in the EDSLab. She will focus her research on Alkaline Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis by Inkjet printing of CCMs using non-noble metals.

Arash Zargar

Master's Student

Arash completed his BSc degree at Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT) and his MSc. degree at the University of Alberta (UofA). During his bachelor’s thesis, he worked on designing and optimizing DBD actuators to decrease the drag coefficient of a simplified car model using experimental methods. Afterward, he became the lead research assistant at DANA aerodynamic laboratory at AUT to study the effective parameters on the formation of the Stall Cell phenomenon on wings with relatively thick cross-sections. His previous research project at UofA focused on investigating the flow dynamics around sharp-edged bluff bodies using the LES and DNS methods; the application of this research at UofA spans from optimizing the shape of cars, trailer trucks, bridge piers, and controller add-on in pipelines and biomedical devices. As a research associate, he worked on developing numerical tools for simulating the flow field of wet counterflow cooling towers at ESDLab. Currently, Arash is a PhD student at the University of Toronto.

Cameron Fenske

Master's Student

Cameron graduated from the University of Alberta in 2020 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Mathematics. In addition to industry experience, he has previously worked on the software development of vehicle test simulators with QTronic GmbH in Berlin and has completed a DRA, studying the development of macroscopic droplet formation using commercial CFD software. Cameron finished his Master’s under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell and worked on developing a macro-scale lithium-ion battery model by means of the finite element method and concentrated solution theory. After his masters, he is currently working as an Engineering consultant at The Technology Partnership in Cambridge, England.

Chad Balen

Master's Student

Mark Balen graduated from the University of Alberta with a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering in 1984. When his son, Chad, was born a flamingo blessed Chad while a triple rainbow shined across the sky. This foretold the greatness born within this child. Eighteen years later he came to the UofA to follow in his father’s footsteps. He received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering in 2013. At the ESDLab and under the supervision of Dr. Secanell, Chad implemented a multicomponent fluid flow model to improve estimation of mass transport losses in a PEFC. He successfully defended his M.Sc. thesis in 2016. Chad is currently working at Siemens PLM in Seattle, WA, USA.

Derek Paxman

Master's Student

Derek Paxman received his M.Sc. in September 2014 for his research, in collaboration with Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures (AITF), in the area of experimental setup and testing, and mathematical model of a thermal methane cracking reactor for hydrogen production. He worked as a Field Engineer at Willbros. Derek is currently working as a Project Coordinator at A&H Steel Ltd. Derek Paxman received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta in 2012 and he spent one year at Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures (AITF) on various projects, primarily in the concentrating solar energy field.

Elena Ezquerra Silva

Master's Student

Elena received her Bachelor in Energy Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology - UTEC, from Perú in 2019. While she was in her undergrad program, she conducted a research internship at the ESDLab where she fabricated and tested PEM fuel cells and studied the effects of different SIGRACET gas diffusion layers on the performance of the cells. After graduating, she joined again the ESDLab and started in Fall 2019 her Master’s Program in Mechanical Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell at University of Alberta. Her thesis focused on developing an oxygen reduction reaction kinetic model for proton exchange membrane fuel cells based on free energies of activation and adsorption. Currently, she works as a Renewable energy analyst at Solas Energy Consulting.

Eric Beaulieu

Master's Student

Eric graduated from the University of Alberta in 2024 with a MSc in Mechanical Engineering. His research in the ESDLab focused on studying the reduction of precious metal catalysts used for the production of hydrogen in Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzers (PEMWE) as well as how well the catalyst layers are utilized. During his time in the lab, Eric gained experience in catalyst synthesis, catalyst ink and electrode fabrication using inkjet printing, as well as electrochemical testing, and characterization of materials. Since graduating Eric has gone on to apply these skills working on the electrochemical treatment of wastewater at BioLargo Canada.

Hao Xu

Master's Student

Hao Xu received his B.Eng in Thermal and Power Engineering from Chongqing University in 2014. After graduation, he joined Automotive Engineering Corporation working as a pipeline designer for two years. He is now working towards his M.Sc. under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell in the ESDLab. His research interests are mainly in porous material characterization, liquid water breakthrough measurement in porous media, and fuel cell testing.

Jake Mouallem

Master's Student

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.

James Kracher

Master's Student

James completed his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta in 2015. Upon completion of his degree, he worked at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research at Forschungszentrum Jülich investigating ceramic proton conducting membranes and their stability when exposed to an ammonia atmosphere under the tutelage of Dr. Mariya Ivanova. In January 2016, James returned to the UofA and joined the ESDLab to complete his M.Sc. by experimentally characterizing the two-phase flow exiting a PEMFC under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell. Together with Manas Mandal, James also managed lab operations and experimental facilities. James is currently working for Venturi Engineering Solutions Inc.

James Woodford

Master's Student

James received a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Alberta in 2022. After graduating, James joined the Semgina Lab where he worked on developing Iridium electrocatalysts for water electrolysis under the supervision of Dr. Natalia Semagina and Dr. Marc Secanell. After working with the Semagina Lab, James joined the ESDLab as an M.Sc student under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell. James is developing numerical tools for the analysis of microscale properties and transport in PEMFC cathode catalyst layers. James also performs catalyst layer characterization via MIP and plasma FIB-SEM.

Jasper Eitzen

Master's Student

Jasper received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta in 2020. During his degree, he had an eight month internship at the University of Bremen IWT where he assisted with research and experiments on molten metal gas atomization, including developing a numerical model to estimate particle cooling during the atomization process. He also had a four month co-op work term at D-Wave Systems in Burnaby, BC testing reliability improvements made to cryogenic cooling systems. At ESDL, Jasper was pursuing his Master’s degree on researching and testing novel catalysts for anion exchange membrane water electrolysis under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell. Jasper graduated in 2023 and now works at Norwood Foundry. He is responsible for the operation of lab equipment for the testing of chemical and mechanical properties of cast parts, as well as design of rapid prototyping work in support of foundry operations.

Kailyn Domican

Master's Student

Kailyn finished his M.Sc. degree in September 2014. He is currently working at Ballard Power Systems. Kailyn’s M.Sc. thesis was in the area of fabrication and testing of thin, low-loading inkjet printed electrodes. He received his B.A.I in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Trinity College Dublin. His Masters degree focused on the catalyst layer and the optimization of Polymer-Electrolyte Fuel Cell design; in an effort to increase performance while also reducing the overall cost. Kailyn is currently working at Ballard Power Systems in Burnaby, BC.

Lisa Clare

Master's Student

Lisa received her B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Calgary. After graduation, she worked for EPCM company Amec Foster Wheeler, first as a mechanical package engineer and later as a piping engineer before embarking on graduate studies at the U of A. Her work centered around the study of cooling towers - as part of this research, she designed and constructed a lab-scale cooling tower and used it to collect measurements to resolve the internal air flow field. Lisa finished her M.Sc. under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell and Dr. Morris Flynn in December 2019, and continued to work as a research assistant at ESDLab until October 2020. Lisa continues her work with cooling towers as a project engineer and researcher with International Cooling Tower.

Madhur Bhaiya

Master's Student

Madhur is a co-founder of the wholesale retail chain WholesaleBox. He also worked as an Applications Specialist at Energy Solutions International in Calgary. He received his M.Sc. degree under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell. He developed an open-source two-phase non-isothermal mathematical model for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells.

Miles Skinner

Master's Student

Miles Skinner completed his B.Sc in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California Riverside. During his undergraduate studies he conducted research into Current Activated Pressure Assisted Densification under Dr. Javier Garay, and interned at the Roller Bearing Company of America. His studies under Dr. Pierre Mertiny and Dr. Marc Secanell were on Flywheel Energy Storage Systems focusing on energy loss characterization and identification of failure modes through vibrational analysis. Miles was also assisting in the construction of a residential scale FESS system to study the effects of scaling and the application of monitoring equipment. Miles is currently a PhD student of Dr. Pierre Mertiny.

Pedro A. Mateo V.

Master's Student

Pedro obtained a M.Sc. degree under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell. He developed two-phase flow models to analyze the microporous layers of polymer-electrolyte membrane fuel cells. Pedro is currently a Ph.D. student in Petroleum Engineering under supervision of Dr. Juliana Leung.

Peter Dobson

Master's Student

Peter is currently working at Enbridge Inc. He received his M.Sc. in 2011 in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta for his research on multi-scale catalyst layer mathematical modeling at the Energy Systems Design Laboratory. He also holds a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta. Peter is currently working as an Applications Engineer at Rapid3D.

Philip Wardlaw

Master's Student

Philip Wardlaw received his BEng from Dublin University, Trinity College Dublin. During his MSc. at ESDL he developed a multi-scale catalyst layer mathematical model in openFCST. From January 2015 until October 2017 Phil worked as an applications developer at IST, the University of Alberta. Phil now works as a programmer at Relic Entertainment in Vancouver.

Prafful Mangal

Master's Student

Prafful received his M.Sc. degree in September 2014. He is currently working at Star Energy Solutions. During his thesis, Prafful performed mass transport measurements in porous materials. He was looking particularly at the permeability and diffusivity of gas diffusion media in PEMFCs. He has also received a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) and Master of Technology (M.Tech) with specialization in Energy Technology (integrated program) in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India in 2011. Prafful is currently working as an Energy Consultant at CLEAResult in Calgary, AB.

Prashanth Karupothula

Master's Student

Prashanth received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2016. During his Master’s, he worked on numerical modeling of dimple formation during Electrochemical Micromachining. After graduating, he worked at Reliance Industries Limited, Jamnagar Manufacturing Division, as a Graduate Engineer Trainee and later as a Maintenace Manager. He was part of a group responsible for commissioning 2 cooling towers and the Effluent Treatment Plant at Jamnagar. He finished his Masters under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell and worked on numerical tools for the simulation of wet induced draft counterflow cooling towers.

Samantha Miller

Master's Student

Sam is currently working at Noetic Engineering in Edmonton, AB. She received her M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta in 2013 for her research work on the design and analysis of an open-cathode polymer electrolyte fuel cell system in an enclosure for use in varying climate conditions. She also completed her B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta. Sam is currently working as a Project Engineer at Noetic Engineering 2008 Inc.

Seongyeop Jung

Master's Student

Seongyeop completed his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the Chung-Ang University in 2014. During his degree, he worked at a combustion laboratory as a research assistant. He was involved in a project of developing a combustor with Samsung Corning corporation. After graduation, he worked at the Hanwha Engineering & Construction company for 3.5 years. As a power plant process engineer, he designed overall heat balance of power plant and handled mechanical equipment packages. He finished his M.Sc. in 2020 under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell and is currently working as a Research Associate at ESDLab.

Adnan Arif

Visiting Student

Adnan was a Chemical Engineering, Computer Process Control, student at the University of Alberta and Fuel cells Lead/PR Coordinator at the EcoCar student group. He has been working at the Energy Systems Design Laboratory in the capacity of Undergraduate Research Associate during the Spring-Summer terms of 2015 and 2016. His main project has been mass transport inside PEMFC’s. Specifically, he has been looking at through-plane and in-plane permeability and diffusivity in gas diffusion layers (GDL’s). In his time at the lab so far, he has built a new, improved setup for conducting mass transport experiments, written programs for more efficient processing of experimental data, and worked on getting reliable data from through-plane and in-plane mass transport experiments.

Aidan Heaman

Visiting Student

Aidan was a B.Sc. student in Mechanical Engineering. He joined the ESDLab with a Dean’s Research Award and was working with the modelling side of the lab. His project was implementing transient operating conditions in OpenFCST and building post-processing scripts under the supervision of Aslan Kosakian and Dr. Marc Secanell.

Alexander Rupp

Visiting Student

Alexander was a third year undergraduate student from the Technical University of Munich. As a Research Award Recipient, he focussed on flywheel research under the supervison of Prof. Pierre Mertiny and Prof. Marc Secanell. His work included the design and optimization of flywheels, as well as their deployment in the rail sector.

Antoni Bach

Visiting Student

While completing his Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Antoni had the opportunity to collaborate with the ESDLab. He finished his Master’s thesis under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell. His work included development and improvement of PEM Electrolyzer performance. Antoni is currently working as a Junior Engineer at ROMETA SA in Barcelona, Spain.

Antonio Peris Alonso

Visiting Student

Antonio received his Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Technology Engineering - ETSEIB (UPC) in Barcelona, Spain, in 2017. Currently, he is finishing his Master’s degree in Energy Engineering (UPC) at the University of Alberta. Antonio is carrying out his research in the Mechanical Engineering department under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell as a part of the UPC-Canada exchange program. His research focuses on the computational analysis of a cooling tower and its plume using CoolIT, an open-source Python package for cooling tower simulations. In particular, Antonio is working on the integration of the plume model into CoolIT.

Clara Kofler

Visiting Student

Clara is currently studying Chemical Process Engineering at the University of Applied Science Mannheim in Germany. She worked at the ESDLab from September 2018 to March 2019 under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell. Clara’s research was concentrated on the viscosity measurements of propylene glycol and in-house catalyst layer inks.

Daniel Ziegler

Visiting Student

Daniel was working from September 2019 for 6 months in the ESDLab. He was doing his undergraduate thesis with the topic “Liquid Water Management in Gas Diffusion Layers for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells " under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell as a visiting researcher from the University of Mannheim for Applied Sciences. Daniel was studying the liquid water breakthrough, water saturation and water intrusion porosimetry of Sigracet GDM with an ex-situ experimental approach. After his undergraduate studies in Chemical Technology he will pursue his master in Chemical Engineering in Mannheim, Germany.

David Caballero Flores

Visiting Student

David completed his B.Eng. in Industrial Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 2016 and started his Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering with Mechanics specialization. In 2017, he was working in the Center for Industrial Equipment Design (CDEI-UPC) as a project engineer and received his PgDip in Design for Industrial Equipment. In March of 2018, he joined the University of Alberta to work on his MEng thesis at ESDLab. He was working on the optimization of PEM fuel cell catalyst layers under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell.

David Lauxmann

Visiting Student

David is currently studying Chemical Process Engineering at the University of Applied Science Mannheim in Germany. During his stay at the University of Alberta, he was working on the fabrication and testing of PEM fuel cells and determining the porosity of porous media with a densometer.

Emelie Krause

Visiting Student

Emelie received her Bachelor of Science degree from Leibniz University Hannover in 2023. She worked for almost two years as a research assistant in the field of experimental PEM water electrolysis at the Institute of Electric Power Systems in Hannover and spent four months at the German Aerospace Center in Oldenburg as part of her student research project to expand her knowledge in the area of PEM fuel cells. During her semester abroad, Emelie is spending seven months at the ESDLab at the University of Alberta to write her Master’s thesis with a research focus on AEM water electrolysis supervised by Marc Secanell.

Frederik Wunder

Visiting Student

Frederik was a third year undergraduate student from the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences, where he studied Chemical Process Engineering. During his internship at the ESDLab in 2012-2013, he worked with doctoral student Shantanu Shukla on fabricating and testing PEM fuel cells.

Inderjit Dhiman

Visiting Student

Starting his third year of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta, Inderjit was given the opportunity to work with Dr. Marc Secanell and Dr. Pierre Mertiny on the flywheel energy storage project. He was responsible for getting the demonstration setup work, which included various tasks from assembling the demonstrator to designing and maintaining a modification of the flywheel.

Jad Chehimi

Visiting Student

Jad was a student pursuing a BSc in Computing Science with Specialization at the University of Alberta. In 2024, he worked as a Research Assistant for the ESDLab under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell. During his time in the ESDLab, Jad redesigned the ESDLab and OpenFCST websites from scratch using the Hugo static site generator, with its content populated by scrapers written in Golang’s Colly library, and automatically deployed via GitHub Action pipelines. In addition, he also worked on streamlining the distribution of OpenFCST onto more platforms, which involved extensive research of C++, CMake, Qt5, and Docker. After his visit, Jad will work towards completing his BSc at the University of Alberta.

James Cook

Visiting Student

James Cook is a third year Computer Engineering student at the University of Alberta. Independent projects of his include UofAtoB, a program that directed new students to their classes using easy to follow instructions and pictures of the University of Alberta Campus. James’ interests and aspirations include the research of artificial intelligence, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, and other machine learning areas.

Jimmy Boulay

Visiting Student

Jimmy is currently working in MASA in Logrono, Spain. He visited the ESDLab and composite Lab as a third year French student from IFMA (French Institute for Advanced Mechanics) making here the first semester of his international year program. He worked on composite flywheel demonstrator, analyzing the risks, securing the demonstrator, creating all protocols to use it and improved the demonstrator design. He worked under the supervision of Prof. Marc Secanell and Prof. Pierre Mertiny.

Julia Hulstede

Visiting Student

Julia completed her B.Sc. in Chemistry at the University of Oldenburg, Germany in 2016. During her Bachelor thesis at the DLR Institute of Networked Energy Systems, she investigated the platinum nanoparticle synthesis on carbon based support materials for fuel cells. In course of her Master’s studies at the University of Oldenburg, she did an internship at the ESDLab and is working on fabrication and testing of PEM fuel cell electrodes using graphene supported platinum catalysts. Julia is currently a PhD student at the University of Oldenburg.

Kirstin Taufertshofer

Visiting Student

Kirstin was a 2nd year undergraduate studying Chemical Process Engineering at Mannheim University of Applied Sciences in Germany. She spent her Co-op term in 2011-2012 at the Energy Systems Design Laboratory working with doctoral student Shantanu Shukla on catalyst layer fabrication and testing of PEM fuel cells.

Lowell McAllister

Visiting Student

Lowell was involved in a research and development project for the U of A EcoCar team with a goal of producing a fully functional fuel cell stack to power their prototype vehicle. He spent the winter semester of 2017 volunteering in our lab to learn procedures to test the electrochemical performance of PEM fuel cells. Lowell has received an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award and worked over the summer 2017 under Dr. Secanell’s supervision to develop and test a single-cell design.

Lukas Baron

Visiting Student

Lukas was studying Chemical Process Engineering at the University of Applied Science Mannheim in Germany. During his internship at the University of Alberta, he was working on the fabrication and testing of PEM fuel cells and investigated the influence of catalysts containing ionic liquids. Lukas is currently continuing his studies in Mannheim.

Lukas Protz

Visiting Student

Lukas received his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences, Mannheim in Germany. Then he is going for his Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the same university. To complete his degree, he decided to come to Canada, where he was writing his thesis at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His thesis is about measuring the breakthrough pressure and the liquid permeability of gas diffusion layers under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell.

Malte Krack

Visiting Student

Malte Krack is currently a Faculty member in Aerospace Engineering and Geodesy at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. During his stay at the ESDLab, he worked on the cost optimization of hybrid composite flywheels by means of the DAKOTA algorithm library, examining analytical as well as finite element models. He also incorporated the numerical optimization software DAKOTA into an in-house fuel cell design framework, implementing a direct, computationally efficient interface. His work was under the supervisions of Prof. Pierre Mertiny and Marc Secanell.

Mavis Lewis

Visiting Student

Mavis joined the ESD Lab team as a visiting graduate student from the University of Cape Town (UCT). During her undergraduate studies (BScEng in Chemical Engineering, UCT) she was introduced to PEFC research through an internship focusing on cracking studies of gas diffusion layers and minimising platinum losses in the MEA process at HyPlat. She is currently continuing her studies in the field of PEFC catalyst development through an MSc programme with the Technology Development team at HySA/Catalysis, UCT. Her MSc work involves synthesis of iridium supported on modified titania for incorporation into PEFC anodes as a mitigation strategy for cell reversal. Through an exchange agreement between the University of Alberta and UCT and funding from the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship, Mavis will complete in situ catalyst testing under the guidance of Prof Secanell.

Max Kruse

Visiting Student

Max received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University, Germany in 2017. For his Bachelor’s thesis, he worked on novel approaches for the modelling of suspension electrodes in Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries. He was doing a voluntary internship at the ESDL, where he was working on finite element computations and the modelling of mass transport phenomena in OpenFCST. Max is currently an MSc student at RWTH Aachen University.

Maximillian Sell

Visiting Student

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.

Mia Thomas

Visiting Student

Mia is an undergraduate student working towards her B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering. She was working on a Dean’s Research Award project under the supervision of Vaishnavi Kale and Dr. Marc Secanell during the Winter 2018 term. The focus of her work was mesh generation for flywheel numerical modelling.

Michael Steer

Visiting Student

Michael was an aspiring Computer Engineering student who was studying at the University of Alberta. Michael was given the opportunity to work with the ESDLab during the summer of 2016. Michael assisted in the process of optimizing the preprocessing of FIB-SEM images in preparation for simulation using OpenFCST. He was also maintaining the OpenFCST Web Server. His interests include clean energy production, computer architecture efficiencies, and low power embedded systems design and applications.

Nicholas Carrigy

Visiting Student

Nicholas (Nick) was a M.Sc. student at the University of Alberta working on drug delivery under the supervision of Dr. Warren Finlay. During May-August 2012, he worked at the Energy Systems Design Laboratory as a summer research assistant sponsored by an NSERC USRA. He wrote a program in LabWindows/CVI to interactively control flow and pressure in a modified convection bridge design used for characterizing the permeability, Knudsen diffusivity, effective molecular diffusivity, and convective mass transport properties of proton exchange membrane fuel cell gas diffusion layers and micro porous layers. He also developed two novel methods for determining the effect of gas diffusion layer and micro porous layer compression on the aforementioned properties. Prior to starting his work at the Energy Systems Design Laboratory, Nick completed an undergraduate research practicum at the University of Alberta Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory developing an experimental validation and a theoretical derivation of water vapour diffusion through the Martian regolith. Nick is currently a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering under supervision of Dr. Vehring.

Niklas Gangnus

Visiting Student

During his practical semester at ESDLab in 2014, Niklas investigated water transport in porous media and worked on fabrication and optimization of microporous layers. In 2015, he came back to our lab to work towards his Bachelor’s degree in Process Engineering (Hochshule Mannheim, University of Applied Sciences in Mannheim, Germany). He successfully finished his research in testing and fabrication of low iridium oxide loading electrodes for PEM electrolysis and is now a M.Sc. student in International Project Management in Systems Engineering at Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany.

Patrick Lohrmann

Visiting Student

Patrick was an M.Sc. student from the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences, where he studied Chemical Engineering. During his stay at the ESDLab, he developed an experimental rig for measuring liquid water permeability on gas diffusion layers. Patrick currently holds a position of a Manager at Paul Hartmann AG.

Remi Lebrun

Visiting Student

Remi is currently working in Airbus in Touluse, France. In 2012, he visited the ESDLab as a 4th year french student from IFMA (French Institute for Advanced Mechanics) making here the second semester of an international year program. He worked on composite flywheel rotor optimisation using finite elements models. These flywheel rotors are used to store energy in vehicles and/or power plants. Remi was optimising the shape of such flywheel rotors for energy density and cost.

Sian Cardy

Visiting Student

Sian is currently a Design Engineer at Cummins Inc. in Northampton, U.K. She worked at the ESDLab for eight months as a visiting Mechanical Engineering student from Queens University, Belfast under a Dean Research Award. She investigated the suitability of an inkjet printer to fabricate fuel cell electrodes. She also studied the ink composition and resulting electrode microstructure under the supervisions of Prof. Marc Secanell (Supervisor). Her research at the ESDLab earned her the Energy Institute Student Prize at Queens University Belfast.

Simon Hoetzendorfer

Visiting Student

Simon Hoetzendorfer was a third year undergraduate student from the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences, where he studied Chemical Process Engineering. During his internship at the ESDLab, he developed a polymer electrolyte electrolyzer.

Stephan Voss

Visiting Student

Stephan received his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technolgy (KIT), Germany, in 2015. During his study, he did an internship at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Freiburg, investigating PEM fuel cells for automotive applications. During his Master’s program at KIT, Stephan was doing a further internship at the ESDLab and was working on the durability and degradation PEM Fuel cells with low loading electrodes. Stephan is currently continuing his studies at KIT.

Tobias Neef

Visiting Student

Tobias is doing a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at the same university. He was working at the ESDLab under the supervision of Dr. Marc Secanell as part of an international cooperation project between the ESDLab and the Chair of Chemical Process Engineering at the RWTH Aachen University. In the project, the fluid flow in polymeric membranes with heterogeneous pore size distribution was be evaluated.

Xavier Perez Maronda

Visiting Student

Xavi received his B.Eng. in Industrial Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 2015. Since mid-2014, he was working in Suez Environment until the beginning of 2018 as a technical engineer in a management department. In 2016, he started his Master’s Degree in Renewable Energy and he joined the University of Alberta in February of 2018 to do his thesis at ESDLab under the supervision of Dr. Marc Sacanell. His research was about the anode Pt loading effect in hydrogen fuel cells.