Rachel Zale is a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering whose research is focused on the physiology of the cardiovascular system and the global vascular effects of mechanical circulatory support (MCS). As a MathWorks Fellow, Rachel will pursue several objectives: to understand the impact of continuous-flow percutaneous ventricular assist device (pVAD) support on renal and cerebral autoregulatory function; to determine the impact of cardiogenic shock (CS) and added pVAD support on the distribution of blood flow to different organ systems; and finally, to identify effects of autoregulation on ventricular-vascular coupling. The aim of Rachel’s work is to test the hypothesis that there exist complex, multidimensional interactions between autoregulatory flow control mechanisms, volumetric flows to different organ systems, MCS device flow, and cardiac loads, with important implications in CS and added MCS. MATLAB is an essential tool for processing in vivo hemodynamic data and elevating the efficiency and quality of data analysis. Rachel’s work has the potential to broaden our understanding of the integrated physiology of the cardiovascular system and could ultimately help to improve the clinical framework and utilization of MCS devices.

Akshat Zalte is a PhD student in chemical engineering whose research involves innovative molecular representations for application to machine learning in chemistry. His research also spans process modeling and techno-economic analysis of future fuel systems to decarbonize long-haul trucking. As a MathWorks Fellow, Akshat will pursue research in two primary areas: making key improvements to Chemprop and evaluating various liquid energy carriers for their potential value in long-haul trucking. He plans to create a model that can learn based solely on the connections within a given molecule without knowledge of bond order and integrate optical and geometrical isomerism to create 2.5D approaches capturing chirality without the need for full 3D structural data. He will also expand an existing MATLAB framework to assess the economic and emissions implications of vehicle technologies and liquid fuel options such as Fischer-Tropsch diesel and liquid organic hydrogen carriers. Akshat’s work has the potential to yield discoveries that will accelerate the decarbonization of long-haul transportation, as well as provide elegant tools to help researchers in cheminformatics test and hone machine-learning architectures.

Baopu (Bob) Zhang is a PhD candidate in chemical engineering whose research seeks to develop innovative approaches in microchip fabrication to meet rapidly growing demands for enhanced computation performance and energy efficiency. Block copolymer (BCP) directed phase separation (DPS), or the utilizing of guiding templates to direct BCP phase separation, is a promising technique for large-scale and cost-effective microchip fabrication. To date, most work in this area has been in two dimensions. Supported by a MathWorks Fellowship, Bob will utilize his expertise in polymer physics and microelectronics to study this BCP DPS and the feasibility of a three-dimensional (3D) approach. Using MATLAB, Bob plans to develop an efficient optimization algorithm to identify the optimal guiding template configuration for 3D target BCP patterns. This new model will be beneficial for accelerating guiding template design and screening for complex 3D target patterns and could help to realize the potential of BCP DPS for 3D microchip fabrication. Bob’s research has the potential to offer vital new knowledge and applications that address the need for rapid, efficient, and economical computing capabilities.

James H. Zhang is a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering whose research aims to develop interfacial solar evaporators as an alternative, cost-effective method of producing clean water. His previous MathWorks Fellowship enabled James to design experimental systems and transport modeling to better understand the performance of solar evaporators for desalination applications. With a second MathWorks Fellowship, James will extend this work, exploring the mechanisms underlying relevant phenomena, such as the coupling between heat and mass transport from evaporating porous interfaces. Beyond the evaporating performance in open laboratory conditions, he has also developed a comprehensive model to understand solar still device performance and identified the limiting transport resistances in the system. By combining a colleague’s MATLAB- based ray-tracing code and experiments on the light coupling effects with the air-liquid interface, James will study their effects on the water production rates of solar desalination devices. His research has strong potential to improve our mechanistic understanding of the thermodynamics of these effects and speed the development of solar technology to meet global needs for clean drinking water.

John Z. Zhang is a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering whose research examines the interaction between electrostatic and mechanical forces in piezoelectric materials and in high- intensity electric fields. Through modeling, he seeks to understand these interactions and provide useful guidelines for design. As a MathWorks Fellow, John’s first project involves designing a totally implantable microphone and amplifier for cochlear implants. The sensor uses a bending piezoelectric cantilever to measure eardrum motion as a proxy for free-field sound. The second project concerns the active shaping of in-space manufactured ultra-large diameter reflector antennas using electrostatic pressure. Both systems involve specialized electronics; the cochlear implant microphone requires an exquisitely low-noise and low-power sensing amplifier, while the reflector requires high-voltage electronics to adjust the electric fields that shape it. MATLAB is an essential tool for both projects and in the course of his work. His research is yielding innovative approaches for modeling and designing continuum electromechanical systems and has the potential to advance a variety of applications beyond hearing implants and space communication systems.

Yuexua (Vincent) Zu is a PhD candidate in chemical engineering whose research is focused on engineering microorganisms for the renewable production of biofuels. Specifically, Vincent aims to engineer cells capable of converting renewable feedstocks into intracellular lipids with high titer, productivity, and yield. Supported by a MathWorks Fellowship, he will use MATLAB-based in silico metabolic models to explore a novel co-feeding approach, pairing glucose with the less-preferred substrates. This approach significantly increases biomass production and product yield; a deeper understanding of this phenomenon could shed light on the underlying metabolism of metabolic adaption. Vincent has created a metabolic model for the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica and identified a promising target gene that has been cloned into cells. He plans to develop a predictive model to guide the genetic design of strains for further performance improvement. In addition, Vincent has developed an automated data acquisition/processing pipeline to monitor real-time CO2 production in bioreactors. His work has strong potential to advance the development of renewable biofuels and to promote innovative applications of MathWorks tools within the field.