Shashank Sripad (M.S. '16)

Since his undergraduate days, Shashank Sripad has been interested in energy storage technology. After earning a BS in chemical engineering, he worked on supercapacitors and energy harvesting devices at the Indian Institute of Science and National Aerospace Lab in India. CMU’s reputation for energy storage research attracted Shashank, and the EST&P program offered a holistic perspective he knew was critical to solving problems in the energy sector.

A Mechanical Engineering Concentration enabled Shashank to dive deep into core energy fundamentals and applications. Courses like Electrochemical Energy Systems, Advanced Thermodynamics, and Materials for Energy Storage furthered his interest in energy storage systems and inspired him to enroll in a PhD Program at Carnegie Mellon. The “Feasibility Study of Wireless Electric Buses” project, which Shashank undertook with his team as part of his Energy Demand and Utilization course, won several awards and was presented at the MIT Energy Conference, the Duke Energy Conference, and CMU's Energy Week.

As a Ph.D. candidate, Shashank continues to focus on system-level modeling of energy storage systems and application areas like electric vehicles and electric aircraft, as well as cross-cutting areas like electric vehicle security. His research focuses on quantifying the improvements in battery technology, particularly in transportation.

His advisor, professor Venkat Viswanathan, appreciates Shashank’s capabilities. “He has matured enormously, shaped by his education and research experiences at CMU. I look forward to working with Shashank on tackling challenges in electrification of trucks and planes.” Their work has also attracted the attention of WIRED, Reuters, and the Washington Post, highlighting the lack of understanding of performance metrics that quantify the transition of the trucking industry to electrified fleets.