Chemical engineering doctoral student Kavin Chakravarthy Thangaraj recently took the top award for his poster presentation at the annual Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Vacuum Society conference.
The conference brings together researchers who are using vacuum and other controlled environments for the development of materials, technology, and devices to help people and promote interactions with participants from multiple laboratories throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Thangaraj is working closely with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), studying salt hydrates as an energy storage material. The work could someday help improve reliability and provide back up for inconsistently available energy sources, such as solar and wind power.
He is part of the WSU and PNNL’s Distinguished Graduate Research Program that allows students to work with scientists from both institutions. Thangaraj is advised by Xiao Zhang at WSU and Venky Prabhakaran at PNNL.
