The Clark Doctoral Fellows Program substantially increases the A. James Clark School of Engineering’s number of graduate fellows, supporting 30 first-year doctoral students each year as an impetus for research in strategic and vital areas. These fellows have the potential to become tomorrow’s leaders and innovators, launching technology companies and spearheading lifesaving advances to improve society.
Students selected for this distinguished program will participate in networking receptions, seminars, and other events in support of their academic and professional development. Each Clark Doctoral Fellow receives a travel stipend and works under the guidance of a Clark faculty mentor, selected from some of the Clark School's most highly qualified and successful doctoral advisors.
Eligibility
- Must be admitted to a full-time Ph.D. degree program in engineering (includes current M.S. students who have been admitted to the Ph.D. program)
- Must be a citizen or permanent resident of the U.S. or its territories
No additional application is required for student applying to Ph.D. programs in the Clark School of Engineering. Each graduate program will nominate applicants that they determine are excellent candidates for the program.
This program will fund the tuition and living stipend of Fellows for their first academic year at the University of Maryland. The first-year award is renewable for three additional fiscal years using departmental resources.
More Information
More information about each program and how to apply can be found at the following links:
Current Clark Doctoral Fellows
Aerospace Engineering
Melissa Adams | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Aerospace Navigation, Satellite and Debris Group Tracking
Thomas Bone | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Direct Fusion Drive
Nicolas Umberto Bolatto
Victoria Britcher
Frank Cianciarulo
Robotics Using Pneumatic Artificial Muscles
Ian DesJardin | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID
Space Debris Detection Through Plasma Acoustic Techniques
Travis Duchene |Lab Page|LinkedIn
Experimental Hypersonic Aerodynamics
Grant Duemmel
Eric Frizzell | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Post-Impact Granular Dilation on Airless Bodies
Antonios Gementzopoulos
Ray-Shimry Garatsa | LinkedIn | ORCID
Multibody Dynamics
Rose Gebhardt
Daniil Gribok
Charles Hanner | Lab Page | LinkedIn |Google Scholar | Youtube
Planetary and Exploratory Rovers and Robots
Joshua Martin | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Autonomy, Controls, and Systems for Scientific Exploration of Extreme Environments
Samuel Maszkiewicz
Curtis Merrill
Joseph Mockler
Sharan Nayak | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID | Google Scholar | YouTube
Motion Planning of Autonomous Robotic Systems
Nathan O'Brien
Antonio Giovanni Schoneich | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Experimental Hypersonic Aerodynamics
Cole Sousa
Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition
Rachel Suitor | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Cooperative Control of Autonomous Underwater Sensor Networks
Logan Swaisgood
Edward Tocco
Joseph Tolone
Grazchella Vicente | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID
Jacob Ward
Sarah Wielgosz
Nathan Witztum
Bioengineering
Shohini Banerjee | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID
David Boegner |Lab Page |LinkedIn|ORCID
Engineering Point-of-Care Blood Diagnostics
Ken Brandon
Devorah Cahn
Sean Carey | Lab Page | ORCID
Immune Engineering for Autoimmune Disease
Camilla Edwards
Bailey Felix
Rebecca Hays
Anjana Hevaganinge
Romanus Hutchins | LinkedIn
Biomedical Imaging Using Brillouin Spectroscopy
Courtney Johnson | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Immunoengineering Using Mechanobiology for Diabetic Tissue Engineered Therapies
Daniel Levy | Lab Page | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Engineering Extracellular Vesicles for Regenerative Medicine
Jacob McCright
Madelynn McElroy
Shannon McLoughlin | Lab Page | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Multi-material Extrusion Bioprinting for Craniofacial Bone Tissue Regeneration
Kathryn McNaughton
Kaitlyn Moore
Eva Orozco Morett
Divya Muthusamy
Idrisa Rahman
Ann Ramirez | Lab Page | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Using Immunoengineering Techniques at Gut Mucosal Surfaces and Lymphatics
Sarah Robertson | LinkedIn | ORCID
Proteolysis-dependent Synaptic Plasticity in the Visual Cortex
Justin Schumacher
James Shamul | Lab Page | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Micro- and Nanotechnology for Central Nervous System Disease Modeling and Therapeutic Development
Caitlyn Singam
Claire Sissons
Ian Smith
Lauren Smith
Talia Solomon
Aaron Sorrin | Lab Page | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Developing Delivery Strategies and Combination Treatments for Targeted Photodynamic Therapy
Michael Straker | Lab Page | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Ingestible Devices for Diagnosing GI Diseases
Briahnah Streeter
Ivy Vien
Jan Oliver Viyar
Callie Weber | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID | Google Scholar
Sex Differences in Brain Microvascular Endothelial Cells
Sydney Yang | Lab Page | ORCID
Mucin-based Hydrogels as Tools for Immune Modulation
Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Martin Ahn
Robert Allsopp| Lab Page | ORCID | Google Scholar
Cellular Signaling from an Atomistic and Thermodynamic View
Faraz Burni
Sichao Cheng | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Michael Danner | LinkedIn | ORCID
Materials for Energy Efficiency, Electrochemical Engineering, Nano-materials
Richard Hoft | LinkedIn
Solid-State Batteries
Karl Larson | LinkedIn
Solid State Batteries
Joshua Little | Lab Page | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Noble Metal Ion-Directed Assembly of 2D Materials for Heterostructured Catalysts
Wright Makambi | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Rational Design of Salivary Peptides
Michael McKee
Ryan James Moore
Robert Morris
Funke Okunrinboye
Alyssa Petersen
Maria Florencia Petracci Zappala
Joseph Whitmore | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Thin Film Deposition
Civil & Environmental Engineering
Constantinos Frantzis
Probabilistic Natural Hazard Assessment
Camila Proano
Arturo Ramirez
Mia Renna
Amir Riyahi | Personal Website | LinkedIn
Bioremediation of Contaminated Groundwater
Qadri Shaheen
Nneoma Ugwu
Linda Waters | LinkedIn
Leveraging Federal Disaster Outlays to Achieve Sustainability Targets
Electrical & Computer Engineering
Dimitris Amiridis
Erin Avllazagaj | Lab Page | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Malware Analysis and Big Data Mining
Millicent Ayako |Personal Website|LinkedIn|Google Scholar
Quantum Optics for Quantum Communication Networks
Joseph Brock | Lab Page
Integrated Nanophotonic Devices
Marilyn Duong | LinkedIn
Multi-Agent Control, Optimization, Wireless Sensor Networks
Charlie Fisher
Sorah Fischer
Quantum Materials and Optics
Andrew Goffin
Samuel Harper | Lab Page | Directory Page
Quantum Optics for Quantum Networking Applications
Brian Holt
Brendan Jordan
Fabrication and Characterization of 2-D heterostructures
Hunter Kippen | LinkedIn
Post Quantum Cryptography
Zachary McBride Lazri
Application of Signal Processing and Machine Learning to Health Problems
Isaac McDaniel
Digital Circuit Obfuscation
Nicole Menkart | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID
Quantum Optics for Communication
Erfaun Noorani | Github | LinkedIn | ORCID | Google Scholar
Robust-resilient-adaptive Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning
Mahshid Noorani
Oslan Ozbay
Hardware security (potential attacks and defenses)
Michael Pedowitz | Lab Page | ORCID
Deposition of Thin film Oxides on Graphene Heterostructures
Nathaniel Renegar
Jazzmin Robinson | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID
Optoelectronic Analog Processing
Katie Ruland
Ariana Spalter
Amoolya Tirumalai | LinkedIn | ORCID
Mean-field Control of Consensus Dynamical Systems
Stefan Waczynski
Materials Science & Engineering
Felix Adams | LinkedIn
Computational Materials Science, Autonomous Experimentation
Rachel Beall |LinkedIn|ORCID
Gillian Boyce
Kayla Callaway | LinkedIn | ORCID | Google Scholar
Transmission Electron Microscopy
William Card
Thomas Farinha | ORCID
Molecular Beam Epitaxy of Topological Semimetal Cd3As2
Daniela Fontecha | LinkedIn
ALD Process Development of Ionic Materials, Thin Film Sodium Solid-state Batteries
Samuel Freed
Patricia Gonzales
Michael Hinshelwood
John Hoerauf | Lab Page
Neuromorphic Computing Materials Development
Dylan J. Kirsch | Lab Page | Directory Page | LinkedIn | ORCID | Google Scholar
Sputter Deposition, Transport Property Measurements, Energy Storage & Conversion Materials
Joshua Levy
Jonathan O'Neill | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Transport Simulations for Solid-State Battery Optimization
Justin Pearson
Study of Ferroelectrics for Neuromorphic Devices
William Schubert | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID
Solid State Batteries
Arefpour Seyed
Amanda Siciliano |Personal Website |LinkedIn|ORCID|Google Scholar
Sustainable Thermal Insulation Building Materials
Aphrodite Strifas | LinkedIn
Process Optimization and Mechanical Properties Enhancement of HY Steels
Leopoldo Tapia-Aracayo
Richmond Wang | LinkedIn
Pulsed Laser Deposition of Oxide Functional Materials
Meryl Wiratmo
Mechanical Engineering
Kieran Barvenik
Arko Chatterjee
Deng Yun Chen
Adira Colton | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Nano-scale 3D Printing for Biomedical Applications
Cashen Diniz
Allen Garcia | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID | Google Scholar
Natural Language Processing
Nathan Hoffman
Anthony Jones
Elizabeth Jordan | LinkedIn | ORCID
Optimization and Decision Support Systems
Emils Jurcik
Adetola Koiki |LinkedIn
Observing Wildfires through UAVs and Fire Imaging Technologies
Samuel Lee | LinkedIn
Experimental Fluid-Structure Interaction
Charles Meehan | LinkedIn
Decision Making for Robotic Grasping and Manipulation Tasks
Colleen Murray |LinkedIn|ORCID|Google Scholar
Energy Absorption in Cellular Structures
Janel Niska | Lab Page | LinkedIn
Enhanced Tube Heat Transfer
Connor O'Ryan | Lab Page
Using Language Processing to Extract Information from Domain Specific Text
Kathryn Pacheco
Jesse Parreira
Michael Xu
Olivia Young | Lab Page | ORCID | Google Scholar
Additive Manufacturing for Microfluidics Applications
Reliability Engineering
Lance Curtis
Use of Entropy to Predict Welded Joint Failure Under Corrosion Fatigue
Camille Levine | Lab Page | LinkedIn | ORCID | Google Scholar
Improving the Causal Foundations for Human Reliability Analysis in Nuclear Power Applications
Joy Shen | LinkedIn
Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Flooding of Multi-unit Nuclear Reactor Sites
Clark Doctoral Fellows Alumni
Leah Klein Borden (Ph.D. '22, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering)
Dissertation: Electroadhesion of Hydrogels to Biological Tissues: A Discovery that Could Enable Sutureless Surgery
Louis Born (Ph.D. '21, Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Formulation and Delivery of Enhanced Extracellular Vesicles for Wound Repair
Eric Carmona (Ph.D. ’23, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering)
Dissertation: Assessing The Impact Of Electrochemical-Mechanical Coupling In Solid-State Alkali Metal Batteries On Current Distribution And Dendrite Prevention
Andrew Ceruzzi (Ph.D. '22, Aerospace Engineering)
Dissertation: Development of Two-point Focused Laser Differential Interferometry for Applications in High-speed Wind Tunnels
Ashley Chapin (Ph.D. '22, Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Serotonin Sensor-integrated In Vitro Systems as Research Tools to Address the Gut Brain Axis
Lautaro Cilenti (Ph.D. '22, Mechanical Engineering)
Dissertation: Influence of Noise on Response Localizations in Mechanical Oscillator Arrays
Kristen Croft (Ph.D. ’23, Civil & Environmental Engineering)
Dissertation: Copper and zinc interactions and treatment in stormwater bioretention
Sabrina Curtis (Ph.D. ’23, Materials Science & Engineering)
Dissertation: Functionalized Thin-Film Shape Memory Alloys for Novel MEMS Applications
Ariana DeCastro (Ph.D. ’23, Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Understanding Functional Behaviors of Organotropic Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells
Parham Dehghani (Ph.D. '22, Mechanical Engineering)
Dissertation: Burning Emulations of Condensed Phase Fuels Aboard the International Space Station
Metecan Erdi (Ph.D. '22, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering)
Dissertation: Tissue Adhesive, Sprayable Polymer Blends as Adjuvant Surgical Tools
Rebecca Fedderwitz (Ph.D. ’23, Materials Science & Engineering)
Dissertation: Magnetic Nanoparticle Inks for Syringe Printable Inductors
Daniel Fernando Escobar (Ph.D. '20, Aerospace Engineering)
Dissertation: Fundamental Understanding of Helicopter Aeromechanics On Mars Through Chamber Testing and High-Fidelity Analysis
Emily Fisler (Ph.D. '22, Aerospace Engineering)
Dissertation: Comprehensive Study and Fundamental Understanding of Lithium Sulfur Batteries for eVTOL
Eugene Froimchuk (Ph.D. '22, Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Leveraging Self-assembly and Biophysical Design to Build Next-generation Immunotherapies
Brandon Gaitan (Ph.D. '22, Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Development of Fluorescent Imaging Methods and Systems to Determine Photodynamic Potential and Inform Cancer Treatment Efficacy
Steven Guerin (Ph.D. ’23, Materials Science & Engineering)
Dissertation: Radiation Chemistry in Pressurized Water Nuclear Reactors
Seyhan Gul (Ph.D. '22, Aerospace Engineering)
Dissertation: A modern aeromechanical analysis of hingeless hub tiltrotors with model- and full-scale wind tunnel validation
Raquel Hakes Wetson-Dawkes (Ph.D. '21, Mechanical Engineering)
Dissertation: Studies of Inclined Flame Instabilities and the Relationship Between Wildland Fire Exposure and Structure Destruction
Samuel Horlick (Ph.D. '21, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering)
Dissertation: Tuning the Structure and Chemistry of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes for High Performance and Stable Operation
Collin Inglut (Ph.D. '22, Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Light Activatable Pure Porphyrin Nanoparticles for the Photodynamic Opening of the Blood-brain Barrier and Glioblastoma Treatment
Nathan Johnson (Ph.D. ’23, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering)
Dissertation: Assessing the thermal safety and thermochemistry of lithium metal all-solid-state batteries through differential scanning calorimetry and modeling
Mithuun Kanapathipillai (Ph.D. '22, Aerospace Engineering)
Dissertation: Scramjet Combustor Mode Transition by Controlling Fuel Injection Distribution
Ellery Klein (Ph.D. ’23, Mechanical Engineering)
Dissertation: Development and Performance Evaluation of Shape Optimized Variable Geometry Bare Tube Heat Exchangers using Adjoint Methods
Stephanie Kronstadt (Ph.D. '22, Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Assessment of Mechanical Cues to Enhance the Clinical Translation of Extracellular Vesicles
Austin Drisko Lewis (Ph.D. '22, Reliability Engineering)
Dissertation: Dynamic Bayesian Network Data Updating Approaches for Enabling Causal Prognostics and Health Management of Complex Engineering Systems
Barry Liang (Ph.D. '22, Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Engineering Light-activatable Nanocomplex to Overcome Multidrug Resistance and Improve Drug Delivery
Ravi Lumba (Ph.D. '22, Aerospace Engineering)
Dissertation: Scalable Domain Decomposition for Parallel Solution of Three-Dimensional Multibody Finite Element Based Rotorcraft Aeromechanics
Madeline Antonia Morales (Ph.D. '22, Materials Science and Engineering)
Dissertation: Understanding the effect of fabrication conditions on the structural, electrical, and mechanical properties of composite materials containing carbon fillers
Shakiba Nikfarjam (Ph.D. '23, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering)
Dissertation: Effect of Protein Folding State and Conformational Fluctuations on Hydrogel Formation and Protein Aggregation
Ramsay Nuwayhid (Ph.D. '22, Materials Science & Engineering)
Dissertation: Atomic layer deposition of alkali phosphorus oxynitride electrolytes for beyond-lithium nanoscale batteries
Vincent Paglioni (Ph.D. ’23, Reliability Engineering)
Dissertation: Improving the Foundational Knowledge of Dependency in Human Reliability Analysis
Shannon Tsai (Ph.D. '22,Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Leveraging Biomaterials to Direct Immune Function in Cancer and Autoimmunity
Tyler Sinotte (Ph.D. '20, Aerospace Engineering)
Dissertation: A Strain-Based Experimental Methodology for Measuring Sectional Stiffness Properties of Composite Blades
Justin Stine (Ph.D. ’23, Electrical & Computer Engineering)
Dissertation: Mesoscale Embedded Sensor-Integrated Systems for Localized Biomedical Monitoring
James Sutherland (Ph.D. '22, Aerospace Engineering)
Dissertation: Development and Whirl Flutter Testing of Swept-Tip Tiltrotor Blades
Kendyl Waddell (Ph.D. ’23, Mechanical Engineering)
Dissertation: Near-Limit Spherical Diffusion Flames and Cool Diffusion Flames
Sally Wang (Ph.D. ’23, Bioengineering)
Dissertation: Feedback-controlled Bioelectronic Hybrid System Enable by Electrogenetic CRISPR
Amirhossein Yazdkhasti (Ph.D. '22, Mechanical Engineering)
Dissertation: Passive and Active Graded-index Acoustic Metamaterials: Spatial and Frequency Domain Multiplexing