Ezequiel Medici and his professor Jeffrey Allen were given the first
Bhakta
Rath Research Award. The award was presented recently by Rath and his wife, Shushama Rath.
Rath, a 1958
Michigan Tech alumnus, developed the award to recognize a doctoral student at the university and his or her faculty advisor for exceptional research of particular value that anticipates the future needs of the nation while supporting advances in emerging technology.
Allen and Medici will share a $2,000 prize.
"I feel really honored to have our research recognized because of its potential impact on the fuel-cell industry," Medici says.
Allen added this accolade for the student: "The credit for the success of this research belongs to Ezequiel."
Medici and Allen's research focuses on improving the management of the water produced during the operation of a fuel cell, liquid that leads to performance loss and rapid degradation of the fuel cell, significantly reducing the life of the system. They developed a new technique for optimizing fuel cell electrodes and a simple, reliable computational tool that captures the nature of liquid water movement in fuel cell electrodes. Their work, sponsored by the
US Department of Energy and conducted in collaboration with the
Rochester Institute of Technology and
General Motors, will reduce the research and development time and cost of improving fuel cell performance and durability.
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: Jeffrey Allen, Michigan Tech University
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