3/6/2023 Cassandra Smith
This award was created to celebrate the hard work and dedication of Professor Ross J. Martin.
Written by Cassandra Smith
This award was created to celebrate the hard work and dedication of Professor Ross J. Martin. He was a member of The Grainger College of Engineering faculty for 40 years. During the last 26 of those years, he was the Associate Dean and Director of the Engineering Experiment Station. “He was an extraordinary person, dedicated to the highest standards of achievement for the members of our college,” said Executive Associate Dean Philippe Geubelle.
Patra is a PhD student working with Professor Paul Braun’s group in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Laboratory. Patra received this award based on his research into the design of advanced inorganic materials and devices for battery technology.
“The cumulative impact of my key contributions lies at the intersection of inorganic solution electrochemistry, ceramic manufacturing, and sustainability,” said Patra. “During my PhD in the Braun group, we developed a new electrochemical manufacturing technology for ceramic materials that led to battery electrodes with unprecedented power and energy density.” He continued to say his work demonstrates a general electrosynthesis platform for controllable micron scale ordering combined with enhanced direction-dependent electrochemical performance in thick ceramic oxide films important for energy storage.
“I would like to thank my advisor Prof. Paul Braun, Braun group members, and our research collaborators for their continued support,” said Patra. “I am also thankful to the college of engineering for the selection and department of materials science and engineering for the nomination.”
Professor Braun commended Patra for his commitment to their research. “Arghya has the powerful combination of vision, a deep understanding of materials science, and a practical understanding of experimental techniques, which gives him the ability to identify important scientific and engineering questions, and then perform world-class research to answer these questions. His work on materials for electrochemical energy storage is groundbreaking, and very much at the forefront of the field.”
This is not the first time Patra has been recognized for his excellence. He’s received the Racheff-Intel award for outstanding graduate research (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2022), Graduate Excellence in Materials Science (GEMS) Diamond award (American Ceramic Society, 2022), Industrial Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Engineering Division H. H. Dow Memorial Student Achievement Award (Electrochemical Society, 2022) and Mavis Future Faculty fellow (The Grainger College of Engineering, UIUC, 2021-22). He has had research published in several journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.