Curriculum Vitae

Currently

I currently work as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), part of UL Research Institutes, in Columbia, Maryland. I am particularly interested in applying my skills for research in material development from the perspective of flammability and/or pyrolysis, waste upcycling, and modeling of heat transfer and thermodynamic processes.

Education

2017 - 2021 University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, U.S.A,

Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical Engineering

Dissertation: Experiments and Semi-Empirical Modeling of Buoyancy-Driven, Turbulent Flame Spread over Combustible Solids in a Corner Configuration

2014 - 2016 Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, U.S.A,

Master of Science in Chemical Engineering

Thesis: Application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to Study Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Pool Fires

2014 - 2016 Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India,

Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering

Bachelor’s Final Year Project: Desulfurization of petroleum-based fuels using ionic liquids: literature review

Work Experience

2021 - Now Post-doctoral Researcher

Highlight - Research work focused on fire modeling to proactively improve the fire safety of people and environment

Fire Safety Research Institute, Columbia, Maryland, U.S.A

  • Performed numerical simulations using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) of gas burner in a residential structure with an HVAC system. The influence of forced and natural ventilation on fire-induced environment was studied and findings were discussed through a journal publication, and via conference presentation and a poster.

2017 - 2021 Graduate Research Assistant

Highlight - Doctoral Research on flame spread and material flammability

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, U.S.A

  • Designed and built a large-scale fire experimentation facility for flame spread testing. Independently designed fast-response sampling system having a 13 second response time for a half Mega Watt exhaust hood to calculate heat release rate during flame spread over solids.
  • Examined pyrolysis and flaming combustion using Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Microscale Combustion Calorimetry (MCC), Controlled Atmosphere Pyrolysis Apparatus II (CAPA II), Milligram-scale Flame Calorimetry (MFC), Cone Calorimetry for poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), poly (isocyanurate) (PIR), and oriented strand board (OSB).
  • Mentored junior graduate students and undergraduate researchers with experiments and data analysis.
  • Communicated and published research findings via conferences and journal publications.

2016 Student Co-op

Highlight - Development of 1D Fire Shelter-in-place (SIP) consequence analysis model

Baker Engineering and Risk Consultants Inc., Houston, Texas, U.S.A

  • Performed individual research to develop a simplified 1D consequence analysis model for fire SIP situation using Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS), MATLAB, and VBScript.
  • Other responsibilities during the internship were assisting on-site jet fire and other experimentation activities which included setting up of the instrumentation such as radiometers, data acquisition system.
  • Consulting facility siting and risk analysis studies for chemical industries also fell under the job responsibility.

Teaching Experience

Spring 2022 Adjunct Faculty - ENFP 312 - Introduction to Heat and Mass transfer

Highlight - Duties involved making lecture notes, lecturing, designing and partly grading homework, projects, and exams

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, U.S.A

  • Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer - Conduction, convection, and radiation modes of heat transfer. Group project included finite difference method coding in MATLAB with an application to unsteady simplified fire problem.

Spring 2021 Co-teaching ENFP 201 - Numerical Methods with MATLAB

Highlight - Designed and offered lectures, and project assignment for image and video analysis in MATLAB for characterizing geometry of a spreading flame

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, U.S.A

  • Taught basics of computer vision, color representation, and functions and modules specific to video/image analysis in MATLAB.

Spring 2020 - Spring 2021 Future Faculty Program Candidate

Highlight - Three semester seminar/workshop series to learn skills and techniques of education, pedagogy, research, technical writing, presentation along with a teaching and research practicum

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, U.S.A

  • Introductory seminar included discussions about research diversification, networking, ethics, and professionalism.
  • Teaching focused seminar emphasized on developing a course; promoting active learning, problem solving and critical thinking; designing exams and assignments; and communicating effectively with students.
  • Faculty research seminar emphasized on establishing and maintaining a research group, finding funding opportunities and writing grant proposals, and mentoring graduate students. Discussions and assignments included practice for faculty position application and preparing research and teaching statements.

Spring 2019 Grader ENFP 415/651 - Fire Dynamics

Highlight - Graded and assisted students with fundamentals such as reaction kinetics, calculus, thermodynamics

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, U.S.A

  • Topics graded included thermodynamics, reaction kinetics, pyrolysis, material flammability, theoretical flame spread models.

Fall 2015 Teaching Assistant - CHEN 414 - Unit Operations Laboratory I

Highlight - Assisted in maintaining and preparing laboratory experiments focused on thermodynamics and fluid dynamics applications

Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, U.S.A

  • Supervised and guided undergraduate students with the experiments, data collection, problem resolution, and report writing.

Publications

Journals

2021

2017

  • Jain P., Reese A.M., Chaudhari D., Mentzer R.A., Mannan M.S., Regulatory approaches - Safety case vs US approach: Is there a best solution today?, J. Loss Prev. Process Ind. 46 2017 154–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlp.2017.02.001.

Presentations

2022

  • “Modeling the Effect of Ventilation on Fire-induced Environment in a large-scale residential structure”, Fire and Evacuation Modeling Technical Conference (FEMTC), Brno, Czech Republic, 2022. (oral presentation)

  • “Effect of ventilation on fire-induced environment in a residential structure”, 10th International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards (ISFEH), Oslo, Norway, May 2022 (Poster)

  • “Analysis of Sensitivity of Vertical Corner Flame Spread Dynamics to Uncertainties in the Model Input”, 10th International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards (ISFEH), Oslo, Norway, May 2022 (oral presentation)

2021

  • “Semi-empirical modeling of flame spread over solid combustibles in a corner configuration”, 12th Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology (held virtually), Queensland, Australia, December 2021 (oral presentation)

  • “Flame spread over poly (methyl methacrylate) in a corner: Experiments and modelling”, 12th U.S Combustion Meeting (Eastern States, held virtually), College Station, Texas, May 2021 (oral presentation)

  • Comparison of Pyrolysis properties of Extruded and Cast Poly(Methyl Methacrylate), 13th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science (held virtually), Waterloo, Canada, April 2021 (oral presentation)

2019

  • Flame Spread on Black Poly (Methyl-Methacrylate) in Corner Configuration, FAA 9th Triennial International Fire & Cabin Safety Research Conference, Atlantic City, NJ, Oct 2019 (oral presentation)