University of Maryland Mechanical Engineering Doctoral Candidate Receives $1,500 Philadelphia STLE Scholarship
Harnoor is a PhD student under Dr. Siddhartha Das in the department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. His work involves modelling the thermodynamics of polyelectrolyte brush grafted interfaces as well as flows in polyelectrolyte brush grafted nanochannels. Polyelectrolyte brushes aid in lubrication by reducing the friction coefficient between two shearing surfaces. On the one hand, he uses continuum modelling to develop new theories for describing polyelectrolyte brush systems. On the other hand, he uses state-of-the-art Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations to study the structure of polyelectrolyte brushes at atomistic length scales. His eventual goal is to use the MD results to validate as well as rectify the existing continuum models, thereby improving our understanding of these promising nanoscale systems.