Personnel
Lab Director
Dr. Nirmala Kandadai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boise State University. She completed her PhD from The University of Texas at Austin in 2012. Her PhD work investigated the interaction of high-intensity laser with molecular gas clusters and the stability of the plasma generated. After her PhD, she worked for a short duration as a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Texas at Austin working on improving the contrast of a 1 PW laser system. After that, she joined National Energetics, Austin Texas as a Laser Scientist. At National Energetics, she lead her team in designing and building high power ultrafast laser systems, which included successfully building the front end of a 10 PW laser system for European Union’s Extreme Light Infrastructure Beamlines facility (ELI-Beamlines). Her current research areas include using ultrafast laser spectroscopy to study coherent excitonic network generated by the precise arrangement of chromophores using DNA self-assembly; designing and employing fiber-optic sensors in extreme environments; optical parametric amplification; mid IR lasers; fiber lasers; laser ablation of thin films; optical imaging and laser-matter interaction. Dr. Kandadai is a Senior IEEE member and has won both CAES and AFRL faculty fellowship.
Graduate Students
Sohel Rana received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology (RUET), Bangladesh in 2014. His research topic was on low loss terahertz (THz) wave guidance. He then attended at Bangladesh University as a lecturer in Electrical and Electronic Engineering department in 2015. He is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boise State University. His current research focus areas include fiber optics, sensors, and integrated photonics
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- Anupama Dhamala
Anupama Dhamala is a doctoral student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boise State University. She joined Boise State in Fall 2019. Her work focuses on modelling the electrical and fluid characteristics of a plasma jet printer. She holds an MS in Measurement and Control Engineering from Idaho State University and BE in Electrical and Electrical Engineering from Kathmandu University. She has been an active member of IEEE since 2016 and has recently joined IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE). She loves volunteering for STEM Outreach. She is interested in science communication. She enjoys learning and can be found documenting things.
- Devyn Duryea
Devyn Duryea is a doctoral Electrical and Computer Engineering student at Boise State University from Seattle, Washington. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from
Northwest Nazarene University in 2020. He then joined Boise State in the Fall of 2020. His research in Dr. Nirmala Kandadai’s FLAIR group focuses on ultrafast laser ablation of novel
materials for nanoparticle creation and refractive index modification.
- Javier Corona
Javier Corona received his BA in Physics from Colorado College and BSEE from Columbia University in 2020. From his experience, he gained an interest in photonics, solid-state devices, analog electronics, and circuit design. He worked under Dr. Hod Lipson in the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University towards the development of a low-cost, open-source ultrasound imaging system. After completion of his BS, Javier returned to Boise pursuing a PhD He is excited to join Dr. Nirmala’s FLAIR group focusing on photothermal research.
- Ellie Schlake
Ellie Schlake is an undergraduate student from Meridian, Idaho pursuing her B.S in Electrical Engineering with an Applied Math Minor as well as her M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the BSU Accelerated Master’s Program. She is currently working on modulated photothermal radiometry (MPTR) research alongside graduate student Javier Corona. She is the VP of Philanthropy in the engineering sorority, Phi Sigma Rho.
Undergraduate Students
- Tevin Poudrier
- Joshua Reser
Alumni:
Lab Scientist
Dr. Marcus Pearlman received his Ph.D. from Electrical Engineering at Boise State University under Dr. Jim Browning in 2018. He worked on developing an Infrared Thermography tool for various applications in the FLAIR lab.
Graduate Students
Bahareh Badamchi earned her B.S. and M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Urmia University, Iran in 2011 and 2013, respectively. After graduating from Urmia University as an honors student, she joined the same university as a lecturer and served in that capacity until 2016. While there, she was also active in research involving the design of Ultra Wide Band (UWB) and Millimeter Wave (mmWave) reconfigurable antennas. Currently, she is pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering at Boise State. Her research focuses on fiber optic sensors; design and fabrication of flexible, conformal and reconfigurable structures in antenna and microwave devices.
Binay Joshi (M. Engg, 2018)
Undergraduates
Attila Rektor is an undergraduate from Material Science Engineering and is currently working on Infrared thermography, imaging cracks on nuclear fuel. Attila Graduated in 2020
James Lamb is an undergraduate from Material Science Engineering and is currently working on Infrared thermography, imaging cracks on nuclear fuel. James Graduated in 2020
Ashley Rivera was an undergraduate student in Electrical Engineering. She had an internship in Idaho national Lab in Summer of 2018 and was an LSAMP scholar.