Undergraduate Student Researchers

AJ is currently involved in the construction of the Pebble Bed Heat Transfer Experiment (PBHTX) and overseeing the creation of a heater apparatus for the Compact Integral Effects Test (CIET). He is a junior working on an undergraduate degree in Nuclear Engineering. He is also lead intern for OraViz, a startup company based in San Francisco working with x-ray reconstructions.

AJ enjoys hiking, discovering new music, and traveling. He is the Treasurer of the American Nuclear Society.

Connie is a Mechanical Engineering student who joined the Thermal Hydraulics (TH) Lab in November 2014. Since then, she’s worked on different projects such as data collection/reduction for heat transfer coefficients in Scaled High Temperature Heat Transfer Experiment (S-HT^2), manufacturing components for Cartridge Heater Experiment (CHEX) and assisting in the data collection. For CHEX, Dowtherm A was used as the heat transfer oil. Comparison of this data with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s data for FLiNaK is ongoing. Further experimental runs are pending. Currently, Connie is part of the team building a new experimental setup for the Pebble Bed Heat Transfer Experiment (PBHTX). She is also machining parts for diffusion bond experiments.

Before joining the TH Lab, Connie briefly shadowed graduate students and postdocs from the Orthopedic Biomechanics Lab and the Cardiovascular Lab. Connie is slated to be a Spring 2016 exchange student to Lund University, in Sweden.

Aside from research, Connie enjoys Pilates, cooking, playing Violin, and fast manual driving. Her favorite sport is rowing. Formerly a member of Cal Lightweight Rowing and Cal Steel Bridge Team.

Sruthi is collecting and analyzing data for the X-ray Pebble Recirculation Experiment (X-PREX), in order to track the movements of each individual pebble.  She is a third year Mechanical Engineering student, with a minor in Environmental Economics and Policy.
Sruthi is the director of the Berkeley Water Group and the captain of her intramural basketball team. She enjoys volunteering, cooking, painting, and going on adventures.