Biography

Paul R. Ohodnicki is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008, after which he joined PPG Industries R&D working on thin-film coating materials and earned the Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Innovation Award from Carnegie Science Center in 2012. Ohodnicki later continued his career at the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), where he eventually served as a technical portfolio lead guiding teams of materials scientists working on the development of optical and microwave sensors as well as magnetic materials and power electronics development for high frequency transformer based solar PV / energy storage inverters.

Ohodnicki has published more than 140 technical publications and holds more than 10 patents, with more than 15 additional patents under review. He is the recipient of the 2016 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor the federal government can bestow on early-career scientists or engineers. He also is the recipient of several other awards and recognitions, including the Federal Employee Rookie of the Year Award (2012), the Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Innovation Category Award for the Carnegie Science Center (2012, 2017, 2019) and in 2017 he was a nominee for the Samuel J. Heyman service to America Medal. Before joining the University of Pittsburgh as an Associate Professor, he received the 2019 R&D 100 Award owing to his work on cobalt-rich metal amorphous nanocrystalline alloys for permeability-engineering gapless inductors.

Research interests

1. Electromagnetic component design and materials
2. Optical fiber and photonic sensors and materials
3. Passive wireless sensors and material
4. Applied electromagnetism and non-destructive evaluation

Biography

Dr. Ruishu F. Wright is a Research Physical Scientist on the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s Functional Materials Team. She serves as Technical Portfolio Lead for Natural Gas Infrastructure FWP and Principal Investigator for multiple projects and coordinates R&D efforts of an interdisciplinary team to develop real-time sensors and functional sensitive materials to monitor and mitigate corrosion and gas leaks of natural gas pipelines, enable subsurface geochemical monitoring in support of subsurface hydrogen-natural gas storage, wellbore integrity monitoring of carbon storage wells, and plugging abandoned wells. Dr. Wright’s expertise lies in advanced sensors development for structural health monitoring and environmental detection for energy infrastructure using distributed and nondestructive sensor technologies to ensure safe, reliable and resilient infrastructure for, among other things, natural gas and hydrogen transportation, subsurface wellbores, CO2 storage systems, and plugged abandoned wells. She has extensive experience in design and development of functional materials (e.g. metallic thin films, metal oxides, nanomaterials) to enable various sensor platforms(e.g. fiber optic sensors, passive wireless sensors, electrochemical sensors). She also has strong expertise in corrosion and materials degradation in natural gas pipelines and in deep wells with extreme conditions, such as high-temperature, high-pressure (HTHP) environments. Dr. Wright holds a Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University, and she has published more than 40 technical articles and given more than 30 presentations at conferences, and holds five pending and awarded U.S. patents on sensor technologies.

Research interests

1. Advanced sensors for corrosion, gas, chemical monitoring
2. Nanomaterials, thin films, hybrid materials for sensor functionalization
3. Energy Infrastructure structural health monitoring
4. Intelligent sensor network