Background
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest I have always had a passion for renewable energy. I’ve spent most of my life in Spokane, Washington, and a few years in Central Oregon. Both of which are surrounded by renewable resources offering great potential for sustainable energy. While the ability to provide sustainable energy to the region’s homes and businesses was encouraging, I found it troubling that our heavily utilized freight and transportation industries were and are dominated by fossil fuels. It is my mission to help bridge the gap between renewable energy and renewable fuels to decarbonize our essential industries.
Education
I completed my associate in science direct transfer at Spokane Falls community college, and then transferred to WSU where I earned my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with Summa Cum Laude Fall of 2022. During my First semester at WSU as a Junior I was fortunate enough to meet Dr. Jacob Leachman virtually over zoom in his Thermodynamics course. As one might imagine I not only learned about the fundamental laws governing energy transfer but also about hydrogen’s ability to play a key role in decarbonizing industries dominated by fossil fuels. By the end of the semester, I was working at the HYPER center assisting with the operation of CHEF. I continued learning the ins and outs of safely engineering cryogenic hydrogen at HYPER until I graduated. Eager to continue my journey following an internship at Daimler Truck I began my Masters Fall of 2023 working at the HYPER center.
Research
At a frigid -420 degrees F, keeping liquid hydrogen cold is no easy feat. Typically it is liquified in batches utilizing cryo-cooler refrigerators, but what happens when we want to transfer this liquid hydrogen from one point to another in our system (away from active cooling)? How well does the pipe need to be insulated to prevent significant boil off? What kind of pressure drop can be expected? How much vapor and how much liquid will be present at the end of the pipe? How long does it take for the pipe to cool down? These are all questions that are vital to understand when designing any LH2 system and the aim of my research is to develop models that enable these questions to be answered simply with confidence.