The Academic Minute for 2022.04.11-2022.04.15

The Academic Minute from 04.11 – 04.15

Monday, April 11th
Khurram Afridi – Cornell University
Wireless Charging of Electric Vehicles
Khurram Afridi is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Cornell University’s College of Engineering. He received his BS from Caltech in 1989, and he did his Master’s and Ph.D. work at MIT. His research interests are in power electronics and energy systems incorporating power electronic controls. He has worked in industry and academia for more than 25 years.

Tuesday, April 12th
Lara Estroff – Cornell University
Pathological Mineralization
Lara Estroff is a professor and chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University. Her research focuses on bio-inspired materials synthesis, in particular, the study of crystal growth mechanisms in gels and their relationships to biomineralization. Among other honors, she is the recipient of the NSF Early Faculty Career Award and the J.D. Watson Young Investigator’s Award.

Wednesday, April 13th
Uli Wiesner – Cornell University
Molecular-Engineering Cancer Therapeutics
Uli Wiesner is a professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University and co-director of the MSKCC-Cornell Center for Translation of Cancer Nanomedicine. His research uses polymer science to generate multifunctional nanomaterials for applications including energy conversion and storage, clean water, and nanomedicine.

Thursday, April 14th
Karl Lewis – Cornell University
Novel Approaches to Study Early Cell Changes in Muscoskeletal Disease
Dr. Karl Lewis is an assistant professor at the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. Dr. Lewis’s research interests center on understanding the interplay of mechanical cues and biological changes in musculoskeletal tissues. His group develops novel intravital imaging techniques for studying mechanotransduction and mechanobiology in vivo. They interrogate how acute sensing mechanisms in musculoskeletal cells relate to tissue-level changes in healthy and disease states, with the objective to use this knowledge to identify new targets for therapeutic intervention in musculoskeletal disease. Moreover, the Lewis Lab is dedicated to expanding analysis techniques for histological and live imaging data.

Friday, April 15th
Elaine Petro – Cornell University
Is There Life Out There and How Would We Know It?
Elaine Petro joined the Cornell University faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at in 2020. She is the director of the newly formed ASTRAlab, which focuses on sustainable space exploration architectures. Elaine did her graduate work at the University of Maryland’s Space Power and Propulsion Laboratory studying the use of water as a propellant. She also spent time in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics as a visiting student and post-doctoral researching technology for small satellite platforms. Elaine has been named an ARCS Scholar, National Science Foundation and Amelia Earhart fellow, and was recognized as one of AIAA / Aviation Week & Space Technology’s Twenty20s emerging leaders in aerospace in 2016.