Congratulations to CEEE’s 2026 Graduates!

Congratulations to CEEE’s newest graduates! We are excited to celebrate three new Ph.D.s and a group of outstanding master’s graduates. Each has already made important contributions to the field of thermal management. This year’s graduates include:

CEEE graduates at Clark School 2026 Commencement at the Xfinity center. Graduates and faculty are dressed in academic regalia.

AHXPI graduates and faculty: Murilo Nicoluzzi, Ph.D., Veeresh Ayyagari, Ph.D., Minta Martin Professor Michael Ohadi, Kyle Martin, M.S., and Namir Bruck, M.S. (not pictured: Matthew McGhee, M.Eng.)

Doctorate recipients

Veeresh Ayyagari, Ph.D., served as a graduate research assistant with CEEE’s Advanced Heat Exchangers and Process Intensification (AHXPI) Consortium. After defending his dissertation, “An Additively Manufactured, Salt Hydrate-Based Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage for Peak Load Shifting in Building Equipment,” Ayyagari has been working since last fall as a senior thermal systems reliability engineer with Tesla in Fremont, California.

Po-Ching Hsu, Ph.D., worked as a graduate research assistant for CEEE’s Consortium for Energy Efficiency and Heat Pumps (EEHP), and recently defended his dissertation, “Experimental Investigation and Data-Driven Modeling for Variable Refrigerant Systems.” He will join Solstice Advance Materials in Buffalo, New York, as an advanced R&D engineer.

EEHP graduates and faculty: Tamoy Seabourne, M.S., Dana Kang, M.S., Research Professor Yunho Hwang, and Po-Ching Hsu, Ph.D.

Murilo Nicoluzzi, Ph.D., was a graduate research assistant for AHXPI. Last October, he defended his dissertation, “A Novel Air-Cooled Heat Sink for an Electric-Propulsion Aircraft Application Based on the Manifold-Minichannel Concept.” He is now an advanced R&D engineer with Solstice Advance Materials.

Master’s graduates

Namir Bruck, M.S., served as a graduate assistant with AHXPI. His research included validation testing for high heat flux data chip cooling using a micro-fabricated silicon heat exchanger. He also investigated the impact of additive manufacturing defects on the performance of optimized supercritical CO2 heat exchangers. He plans to work in industry and is exploring positions in data center cooling, thermal test engineering and design engineering.

Dana Kang, M.S., recently defended her thesis “Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Cold Climate Heat Pump Systems in Commercial and Residential Buildings.” She worked as an EEHP graduate research assistant and was president of the ASHRAE University of Maryland Student Branch. She will be joining ThermalWorks in St. Petersburg, Florida,as a thermal R&D engineer.

Kyle Martin, M.S., served as an AHXPI faculty assistant, a lab engineer and a project leader on several energy audit projects. After defending his thesis “A Silicon and Silicon Carbide Bonding Methodology for Cooling High Heat Flux Electronics,” he is now a thermal systems test engineer with X-Energy in Rockville, Maryland.

Matthew McGhee, M.Eng., was a graduate student researcher with AHXPI. His research focused on the development of a novel low cost thermal energy storage system, and he investigated the effect of grain size and rehydration/dehydration times on latent heats of Glauber’s salt–based phase change material.

Tamoy Seabourne, M.S., recently defended his thesis, “Development and Optimization of Low-GWP Heat Pump Systems for Industrial Wood Drying.” He served as an EEHP graduate research assistant and was vice president of the ASHRAE University of Maryland Student Branch. Seabourne has joined Baltimore Aircoil Company in Jessup, Maryland.

Published May 21, 2026