Rykaczewski Lab

 

We are a thermal and materials engineering group applying innovative experimental and theoretical methods to understand and enhance heat transfer processes across a variety of contexts.

We currently focus on understanding human exposure and thermoregulatory response to extreme heat, from single sweat pore to whole-body level. We improve heat transfer and thermoregulation models and integrate them with innovative portable, mobile, and humanoid environmental sensing platforms to create “physical-digital human thermophysiological twins”. We employ these tools to aid behavioral, policy, infrastructure, and apparel decisions around extreme heat.

We also develop mechanistic understanding into manufacturing of multiphase liquid-metal based composites and use it to improve their thermofluidic characteristics in the context of microelectronics thermal management.