And like everyone else, I also wanted to learn from the best place and the best people.
Before moving to the United States from India in 2015, Gargi Kailkhura studied at the National Institute of Technology, Surat (SVNIT), where she received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. With a keen interest in math and science, Gargi always knew she wanted to become an engineer.
“Engineering is like a default option if you don't like Biology or Arts and every third person you meet in India will be doing engineering,” she said. “My interests in math and science drew me to convert that default option into the desired choice in the first place.”
Gargi continued her education in the U.S. and received her masters degree in mechanical engineering from Arizona State University before ultimately ending up at University of Maryland, where she is currently working on obtaining her Ph.D. She said she chose UMD because of the high university ranking and the academic program aligned with her interests in numerical modeling and design.
“And like everyone else, I also wanted to learn from the best place and the best people,” she said.
Gargi is a graduate research assistant for the Advanced Heat Exchangers and Process Intensification (AHXPI) Consortium group for the Center for Environmental Energy Engineering.
She won Best Student Presentation on her current research at the Spring 2019 Consortium Meetings.
“Currently, my projects are on heat exchangers used in electronics cooling like desktop cooling applications. I work on the design and testing of composite polymer heat exchangers (CHX) with the patented cross-media approach,” she said. “I am trying to develop correlations for out-of-range spaced tube-banks which can be used in the future for any other fin spacing configurations.”
Outside of conducting research, Gargi enjoys being outdoors, hiking and camping with friends. She also used to be a KVD national badminton player in India, although she says she has not played much since studying in the U.S.
She expects to receive her PhD in the next couple of years, after which she says she wants to continue doing research in the U.S. either in an academic lab or for a private company.
“I want to continue working in the U.S. after I graduate as there are so many opportunities and freedom in what we can do,” she said.
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