Chris Dames’ research focuses on fundamental studies of thermal transport at the nanoscale and other challenging regimes. He earned his PhD from MIT in 2006 under Gang Chen, following a BS and MS (under Arun Majumdar) from UC Berkeley. He was previously an Assistant Professor at UC Riverside before joining UC Berkeley in 2011, and since 2013 he has also held a joint appointment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in the Materials Science Division. PhD alumni from his research group have moved on to positions in academia, industry, and national labs. Prof. Dames’ recognitions include an NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, Viskanta Fellowship and heat transfer lectureship at Purdue University, and selection to the Faculty Leadership Academy at UC Berkeley. He has been serving as Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley since July 2021.

Dr. Lei Tang

Lei Tang received his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Utah in 2017 and 2018, respectively. He went on to receive his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley in 2023 advised by Prof. Dames, and is continuing as a Postdoctoral Scholar. His past research mainly focused on investigating near-field thermal radiation-mediated photonic thermal diodes via both numerical and experimental approaches. Currently, his research focuses on studying polycrystalline ceramics for high power lasing gain media.

Dr. Qianru Jia

Qianru (Sally) Jia is a postdoctoral scholar working on exploring the transition behavior of chalcogenide phase change material, with a particular focus on phase change random access memory (PCRAM). She received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2023, advised by Prof. Li Shi, where her doctoral research focused on exploring the extraordinary thermal transport properties exhibited by low-dimensional materials and superstructures.

Sarah Millen

Sarah Millen received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and B.S. in Applied Physics from UC Irvine in 2024. During research internships with Northrop Grumman, Sarah worked on thermal models for low temperature superconducting electronics. Her research focused on near-field heat transfer and phonon transport through multilayer structures. She is currently supported by UC Berkeley's First Year Fellowship.

Yun Chi Yang

Yun Chi, also going by Zoe, joined UC Berkeley as a PhD student in 2023. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in 2023. At Purdue, she worked on modeling air water harvesting least work advised by Prof. Warsinger, and boiling with special surface treatment co-advised by Prof. Marconnet and Prof. Weibel. Currently, she is working on the thermal switch and phase change material with the goal to improve energy storage system of buildings. She is co-advised by the Thermal Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

Sarah Chen

Sarah Chen received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2022. As an undergrad, she worked on refrigeration models and machine learning models for condensation of binary mixtures at the Sustainable Thermal Systems Lab. Her work as a Ph.D. student is supported by a UC Berkeley Graduate Fellowship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She is co-advised by the Thermal Energy Group at Berkeley Lab.

Ashwath Bhat

Ashwath Bhat received his B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 2021. At IIT Madras, he was part of the Energy & Emissions Lab, advised by Prof. Satya Seshadri, and in 2020 he interned in the Indoor Environment Group at LBNL where he worked with Dr. Spencer Dutton and Dr. Dre Helmns. His research is supported by the CHARM center at UC Berkeley.

Spencer Alliston

Spencer Alliston received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2019, where he worked on Steam Methane Reformation at the distributed scale. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. His current research is supported by the ATP-Bio NSF Engineering Research Center, in which he focuses on characterization and phase tracking of amorphous and crystalline ice for the purpose of biological tissue preservation.

Mingxin Jia

Mingxin received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with minors in Electrical Engineering and Civil Engineering from Columbia University in 2019. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley with the help of a Berkeley Graduate Fellowship. Prior to joining the group, Mingxin’s research focused on developing scalable and low-cost materials and devices for radiative cooling applications. Currently, his research focuses on developing energy-efficient water desalination technologies powered by solar energy. At UC Berkeley, he is co-advised by Professor Chris Dames and Professor Ravi Prasher.