The Philadelphia Section of the STLE is pleased to award a $1,000 scholarship to third year Lehigh University Mechanical engineering and Mechanics graduate student Prince Sharma. Working under the direction of Professor Ganesh Balasubramanian, and in conjunction with the NASA Ames Research Center. Sharma came to Lehigh after completing his MS in Mechanical Engineering and Metallurgical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology. His doctoral research, focused on multi-principal element materials, involves the use of first principles calculations and experimental characterization to examine the mechanical properties and printability of advanced materials for energy and space applications. Sharma is applying electronic structure methods with an emphasis on understanding the elastic softening in multicomponent materials, including borides and MXenes. His results show that that by adding several elements there is reduction in shear modulus (normalized with interlayer distance) from 60 GPa for MXene to 36 GPa for high entropy MXene. Thus, high-entropy MXenes offer enhanced properties by combining multiple elements, providing opportunities for tailoring material characteristics for specific applications. Also, he has been collaborating with Dr. Animesh Kundu at Lehigh on interrogating the thermal properties of hydrogen titanate, H2Ti3O7, which holds potential as an advanced material for solar cells and for catalysis.
Sharma has presented his research and successfully interacted with his peers at the 2022 ASME IMECE conference in Columbus, OH, and delivered oral and poster presentations at the 2023 TMS ICME conference in Orlando, FL. He has also co-authored a journal article, Examining solid-state sintering of AlCoCrFeNi multi-principal element alloy by molecular simulations, published in Computational Materials Science in 2023.
Sharma is described as a very driven and motivated researcher and as a brilliant young scientist who has always displayed diligence, inquisitiveness and creativity. He also has a pleasant personality and helpful nature. He works well in a group and leads projects independently. Sharma is currently on an internship at the U.S Department of Energy Ames Laboratory.