ALUMNI NEWS
EIRC Alumna Mona Ghassemi is Recipient of 2020 NSF CAREER Award and 2020 AFOSR Young Investigator Award Institute of Materials Science
Dr. Mona Ghassemi, an IMS Alumna, is a recipient of the prestigious 2020 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award and the 2020 Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Invistigator Research Program (YIP) Award. Dr. Ghassemi was a post-doctoral fellow at the IMS Electrical Insulation Research Center (EIRC) from 2015 to 2017 working in the fields of streamer modeling for a Department of Defense (DOD)-funded subsea oil and gas electrification project as well as arc gas dynamic computation for General Electric with fruitful research outcomes of multiple joint publications with her advisor, Dr. Yang Cao at IEEE Transactions. Since August 2017, Dr. Ghassemi has been an assistant professor at the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Her research interests include electrical insulation materials and systems, high voltage/field technology, multiphysics modeling, plasma science, e lectromagnetic transients in power systems, and power system analysis and modeling.
IMS Alumna, Dr. Mona Ghassemi
Initial Struggles Led to Lessons for IMS Polymer Program Graduate Dr. Deepthi Varghese Institute of Materials Science
After completing a Master’s Degree in Biochemistry from St. Josephs Arts & Science College in Bangalore, India, Deepthi Varghese joined the UConn Chemistry graduate program in the fall semester of 2014. After hearing brief research presentations from the chemistry departmental faculty, she became interested in Polymer Science with Prof. Douglas Adamson, an unexpected diversion from her initial plans for a career in biochemistry into a field in which she had no experience. Although the lack of experience created a steep learning curve, Deepthi embraced this new research direction. While she faced challenges during the first two years, looking back, Deepthi says that she “gained far more knowledge than expected, including polymer science, electro chemistry, and setting up scientific research laboratories.” Deepthi also struggled with many challenges regarding science including the fact that experiments are more likely to fail than succeed; science takes far more time than initially expected; and there is never enough time to accomplish everything. Lessons like this can be applied to all aspects of life, business, and art, as well as science. IMS Alumna, Dr. Deepthi Varghese
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In addition to the science, Deepthi has increased her knowledge of communications, independent learning, and keeping an open her mind to feedback from all sources. She realized that you never know who will have valuable knowledge.
UConn Institute of Materials Science
