Former Scott Institute Intern and PhD Student Honored in Forbes 30 Under 30
By Sera Passerini, Nicole Thompson
Former Scott Institute intern Raafe Khan (EST&P ‘16) and former Scott Institute PhD student Shashank Sripad (MechE ‘22) have been featured in the list for their innovations in energy.
Raafe Khan’s work with Pine Gate Renewables has helped build one of the largest pipelines in the country, furthered domestically manufactured non-Lithium solutions and patented a novel approach toward designing renewable power plants. Khan was one of the first Energy Intern's at Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and led a team of 15 students to 2nd place in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Battle of the Buildings competition in 2016. Khan was the Marketing Director for the 4th Annual Energy Careers Symposium (now part of Energy Week) and co-led the production of the event along with other EST&P students and faculty, which included painting the iconic Fence. "My heart is full of gratitude", said Raafe said while speaking to EST&P about his award, "I'm honored to be recognized for my contributions and sincerely want to thank from the bottom of my heart all the advisors, teachers and mentors at Carnegie Mellon and the Energy Science, Technology & Policy program. My heart is in the work, and I truly hope to pay it forward by leading with integrity, purpose, empathy, and compassion as we navigate some of society's biggest issues - energy. I look forward to continued collaboration with my industry peers in building safe, reliable, and resilient energy infrastructure."
Read the Forbes profile on Raafe Khan
Shashank Sripad’s conducts research on electric mobility and has co-founded And Battery Aero to build electric aircraft batteries supported by $11.9 million from ARPA-E. Sripad received his PhD in 2022 in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and was advised by energy fellow Venkat Viswanathan where he worked on batteries for electrified terrestrial and aerial mobility systems. Sripad's Ph.D. research on electric mobility has made him a go-to voice for sanity checking advancements in battery technology, informing public policy on autonomous electric vehicles, and he was highlighted by Bill Gates in his book on climate change.