Principal Investigator

Luis Alberto Ruiz Pestana

Assistant Professor, Dr Reza and Georgianna Khatib Endowed Chair

Civil and Architectural Engineering

University of Miami

Ingeniero de Caminos, Canales y Puertos (2009)

Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain

Ph.D., Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (2015)

Northwestern University

Postdoctoral Fellow (2015-2019)

Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Pitzer Center for Theoretical Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley

Current Members

Geng Yuan

Ph.D. Student

(co-advised with Prof. James Englehardt)

B.S. Environmental Engineering

China University of Mining and Technology, China, 2016

M.S. Earth and Environmental Engineering

Columbia University, 2018

Hobbies

music, painting

Subhashree Panda

Ph.D. Student

(co-advised with Prof. Prannoy Suraneni)

B.S. Civil Engineering

College of Engineering and Technology, Odisha, India, 2018

M.S. Structural Engineering

Vellore Institute of Technology, India, 2020

Hobbies

cooking, baking, painting

Mingyue Wu

Ph.D. Student

B.S. Geology

Xi'an Shiyou University,

China, 2018

M.S. Marine Geosciences,

RSMAS, University of Miami, 2020

Hobbies

painting, baking

Meili Liu

Postdoctoral Associate

B.S. Chemistry (2016)

Hunan Normal University, China

Ph.D. Physical Chemistry (2021)

Beijing Normal University, China

Visiting Scholar, Pitzer Center for Theoretical Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley

Hobbies

tennis, hiking, reading

Akhilesh Verma

Postdoctoral Associate

M.S. Physics (2014)

Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

Ph.D. Physics (2020)

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

Postdoc, Mathematics (2020-2022)

University of Warwick, Coventry, England

This could be you!

Former Members

Swathi Shantharaju

Ph.D. Student

(co-advised with Prof. Prannoy Suraneni)

B.E. Civil Engineering

Visvesvaraya Technological University, India, 2015

M.S. Civil Engineering

National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India, 2017

Hobbies

hiking, traveling, music, painting

Kara Samuel

Undergraduate Researcher

University of Miami

Class 2023

Hobbies

tennis, piano, cooking,

snowboarding, working out

Hari Dave

Undergraduate Researcher

IIT Gandhinagar

Class of 2022

Hobbies

table-tennis, singing, painting

Hanna Campos

Undergraduate Researcher

University of Miami

Class of 2023

Hobbies

upcycling, photography, working out,

hiking, cooking

Alex Scaff

Undergraduate Researcher

University of Washington in St. Louis

Class 2025

Hobbies

soccer, basketball, video editing, kayaking

Chaitanya Guntoorkar

Undergraduate Researcher

IIT Gandhinagar

Class of 2023

Hobbies

swimming, international affairs, crime novels, and anime

Harsh Dudhatra

Undergraduate Researcher

IIT Gandhinagar

Class of 2023

Hobbies

leather ball cricket, chess, puzzles, and swimming