Student Team
PhD Students
Andreana Louise Roxas
Andreana Roxas completed her Bachelors degree in Civil Engineering with Summa Cum Laude at Morgan State University in May 2022. During her undergraduate career, she gained various industry experience in civil engineering including traffic, environmental/water resource, and bridge. However, she gained a high interest in sustainability after taking an elective course that focused on LEED. In addition to her industry experience, she has also earned the Engineer-in-Training and LEED Green Associate certifications. She joined Michigan State University in Fall 2022 in the PhD program for Civil Engineering with a focus on energy/sustainability.
Behlul Kola
Behlul Kula is currently a Ph.D. student and graduate research assistant in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department at Michigan State University (MSU). Also, he is a team member of MSU Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) as an energy & sustainability analyst. He completed his Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering from Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Turkey in 2015. He then worked in Qatar as a site civil engineer in Dogus Construction company for nearly one year. After, he completed his MSc Degree in Construction Management from Istanbul Technical University in 2019. For his MSc thesis, he focused on the integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in facilities management. Before joining the MSU, he worked as a research & teaching assistant at ITU from 2017 to 2021.
His Linkedin profile is here
Hao Dong completed his BS and MS degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from University of Dayton, OH in 2017 and 2020, respectively. For his MS studies, he focused on the field of advanced material applications under various thermal conditions to improve building safety and reliability in long term. During his MS studies, he developed interests in sustainability of building system through implementing advanced controls. Joining PhD program at Michigan State University in 2020, he is currently conducting research in the field of energy efficiency, building modeling, energy simulation, and data analysis in smart building systems.
His Linkedin profile is here.
Soham Vanage completed his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Mumbai University, Mumbai in 2016. He then worked for a year in Jacob’s engineering as a design engineer in the oil and gas industry until 2017. He completed his master’s in Energy System Engineering from Iowa State University in Fall 2019 with a focus on building energy systems and HVAC design and also worked with local utility as an intern for various energy-related projects in Fall 2019. His areas of interest are energy and daylighting modeling and validation and integration of buildings with the grid using demand response technologies. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Civil Engineering department at Michigan State university.
His Linkedin profile is here.
Patricia Guillante
Patricia Guillante is currently a Ph.D. student and graduate research assistant in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan State University with focus on energy efficiency and sustainability. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Civil Engineering from University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), in Brazil. After receiving her master’s degree, she accepted a trainee position in a large ready-mix concrete manufacturer in Brazil. She became a plant manager and worked there for three years until she joined MSU to pursue her Ph.D. Her MSc thesis focused on the use of alternative waste materials in partial replacement of cement to reduce cement contents and, consequently, CO2 emissions. She is interested in sustainability and in the role that building’s energy efficiency plays in reducing emissions, as well as their social impact on communities.
Her LinkedIn profile is here.
Secil Akinci-Ceylan is a PhD student in Educational Technology in the School of Education and working on a National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored engineering education project focusing on ill-structured problem solving approaches. She is currently an intern as a part of the NSF-supported INTERN program, at the American Society for Engineering Education. She holds a BA in Linguistics from Hacettepe University, Turkey. She then worked as an instructor and taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) courses at Izmir Institute of Technology for three years. She earned her MA in Teaching English as a Second Language in Applied Linguistics and Technology Program at ISU and has experience teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) courses in the English Department and Intensive English and Orientation Program (IEOP) at ISU. Her interests are Engineering Education, Educational Technologies, Instructional Design, and Corpus Linguistics.
Her Linkedin profile is here.
Masters Students
Christiana Kiesling
Christiana is a master’s student at Michigan State University studying civil engineering with a structural emphasis. She received her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering in 2022 from Texas Tech University. She holds an assistantship position at MSU and will begin research in 2023. Her first bachelor’s degree was in Music Education from the University of North Texas, but she returned to school to study engineering after working for several years. Christiana enjoys civil engineering because it allows her to use her love of math and science to make a positive impact on the community.
Undergraduate Students
Noah Dreiling is a Junior undergraduate at Michigan State University majoring in Electrical Engineering and Economics. He interned at First Solar for the calendar year of 2021, working in the Post-Sales Support and Product Management groups. Addressing module defects and overseeing product rollouts. During the Summer of 2022, Noah is working on research investigating people’s perceptions and practices around electricity. He plans to attend graduate school to work on energy-related challenges, particularly the interface of humans and technology.
His LinkedIn profile is here.
Natalie Fylak
Natalie is a current undergraduate senior at Michigan State, studying civil engineering. She initially pursued civil engineering because of a fascination of the built world and urban structures. As her experience grew, she began to become drawn towards the impact of infrastructure on the climate and pollutants. Natalie is interested in finding a career path revolved around resolving environmental concerns relating to building and construction. Natalie is planning on pursuing a graduate degree in civil engineering upon graduation.
Her LinkedIn profile is here
Xiangxiu (Melody) Zhang
Xiangxiu(Melody) earned her BA in Special Education-Learning Disabilities from Michigan State University (MSU) in 2021. She is now a master’s student at MSU in the College of Education with a focus on world language teaching and curriculum design. Her research interests are Engineering Education, Curriculum Structure, and Development. During her free time, she likes to travel, read and write for fun. Upon graduating from her master's program, she would like to teach special education in public schools and continue to explore ways to better support students with different learning needs in her classroom.
Suhail Saleem
Suhail is a Junior undergraduate student majoring in Environmental Engineering at MSU. He is currently helping out as a research assistant on a few different projects. One example being the ARPA-E project that focuses on CO2 level variations in an environment in relation to occupancy number. Once he graduates, he plans to work on projects related to sustainability of green zones and more environmentally friendly building procedures for the future.
Zachary Gioppo
Zach is a current freshman at Michigan State University majoring in Environmental Engineering and Mandarin Chinese. Zach is currently working on the NNA project, and decided to apply for this role due to the opportunity to combine sociological issues with the ability to reshape the infrastructure system. Zach is hoping to work in project management for infrastructure design in developing countries. Zach's end goal is to is to ultimately make a difference in local communities.
Zach's LinkedIn is here
Janie Cooper
Janie is an undergraduate student who is in her second year of Biosystems Engineering. Janie has found a profund interest in both sustainability and renewable energy , which is how she began her involvement with this group. Her end goal is to end up working for Stryker, or to work as a Neural Engineer.
Her LinkedIn profile is here.
Jordan Hofbauer
Jordan is a third year student double majoring in Data Science and Statistics at Michigan State University. Jordan was born and raised in Clinton Township, MI, with a passion towards finding the truth and relevance within data and data analytics. His end goal is to work within a data analytics department for a professional sports team.
His LinkedIn profile is here
Zoe Linko
Zoe is an undergraduate student majoring in chemical engineering with an environmental concentration and a minor in environmental economics. Her interest in this research group was to have an impact on sustainable projects while creating more environmentally freindly designs. Zoe's next goal is in finding an internship for Summer 2023.
Her LinkedIn profile is here
Claire Benson
Claire is an undergraduate student dual majoring in Computational Data Science as well as Social Relations and Policy. She currently assists on multiple data analytics projects surrounding energy efficiency. Through her studies, she often works in the intersection of data and policy. She is particularly interested in the field of civil engineering because of its connection to public works and structures that are strongly impacted by government programs. After graduation, she hopes to get her PhD in Data Science, become a professor, and continue with research!
Justin Brust
Justin is a Senior in the Linked Master of Public Policy at Michigan State University. He finds an interest in anything relating to energy utilities and sustainable development. His goals for the future include working in either government or local communities, in hopes of fulfilling their utility needs. Justin's involvement with the engineering department is to not only help complete research projects, but also to grow and learn from fellow engineers on energy topics.
His LinkedIn Profile is here
Molly is an undergraduate student at Michigan State University where she is majoring in civil engineering with a concentration in water resources and a minor in environmental science. During Summer 2021, she is completing research on factors impacting households’ decisions to invest in energy efficiency. After earning her degree, she plans to travel to different areas of the world and help communities establish sustainable water systems.
Her LinkedIn profile is here.
Jack Bohl
Coming Soon
Alumni
Yiyi Chu
Yiyi Chu completed her master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at Tongji University, China in 2018. Her master’s thesis focused on studying HVAC system with ultra-low fresh air by designing an adsorption-based CO2 treatment unit, to reduce building energy consumption. During her master’s degree, she also conducted research on indoor PM2.5 control strategies in both office buildings and residential buildings and metropolitan scale electric load short-term forecasting based on load decomposition and ensemble algorithms. Her research area of interest is on building energy efficiency, energy modelling, smart building, occupant-based-control, and other innovative energy technologies and systems to improve energy efficiency and energy performance in buildings. She completed her PhD at MSU in Civil Engineering in 2022. She currently works at TRC.
Her Linkedin profile is here. Her Google Scholar profile can be found here.
Debrudra Mitra
Debrudra Mitra completed his Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering and Masters degree in Energy Science and Technology from Jadavpur University, India in 2014 and 2016 respectively. His master thesis focused on studying on different types of sustainable building envelopes. He also completed Master of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University in 2019. During his masters degree he conducted research on sustainable building envelope materials and concentrated solar thermal applications. His research area of interest is on sustainable building energy systems. He mainly focused on occupant behavior, occupant-based controls and its impact on energy performance in building system. He completes his PhD at MSU in CIvil Engineering in 2022. He currently works at TRC.
His Linkedin profile is here. His Google Scholar profile is here.
Sina Moharramzadeh
Sina Moharramzadeh earned his BS degree in civil engineering from Azad University – Central Tehran Branch in 2011 and his MSc degree in environmental engineering in 2014 from the University of Tehran (UT), where his research was mainly focused on drinking water treatment. After his master’s degree, he worked in a Nanotechnology research lab at UT as a researcher for one year, working on enhancing sludge sedimentation using graphene oxide and iron nano-particles. In 2016, he joined Iowa State University to earn his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering. His research focus is on a new freeze separation process for seawater desalination and RO brine management. He currently works at HDR.
His Google Scholar profile is here. His Linkedin profile is here.
Maria Milan
Maria is a master’s student in environmental engineering. She received her bachelor’s degree in 2020 in civil engineering from MSU. Her research focuses on improving the infrastructure of rural communities in Alaska. She will be traveling to Alaska in summer of 2021 to collect field data on the energy efficiency of houses in a rural community. She is very excited for this awesome opportunity! After MSU, Maria plans to go on to get a Ph.D. in similar research to her Master’s. Outside of school, Maria loves her dog and family. She likes to hang out in coffee shops, bookstores, farmer’s markets, and thrift shops, and her favorite season is winter. Maria hopes to continue research in the improvement of building efficiency in cold climates and overall, as this will be her personal effort against climate change. She graduated in 2022 and currently works at Elevate.
Her LinkedIn profile is here.
Diba Malekpour-Koupaei
Diba Malekpour Koupaei completed her Ph.D. in 2022 in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at Iowa State University. She holds master’s degrees in Civil Engineering (2020) and Sustainable Environments (2018) from Iowa State University and received her bachelor’s degree from Art University of Isfahan in Architectural Engineering (2015). Diba’s research is mainly concerned with building energy performance modeling and energy efficiency in the built environment, specifically residential buildings in the rural and urban landscapes. In addition, she has also worked with smart home energy management systems, where her work involved evaluating users’ perceptions and attitudes towards such devices.
Her Google Scholar profile is here. Her Linkedin profile is here.
Emily Kawka
Emily is a master's student at Michigan State University in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Following the reception of her bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering, she is pursuing her master's in Civil Engineering with a focus on energy efficiency, sustainability, and data analytics with an expected graduation date of May 2022. With over four years of industry and research experience driven by her passion for sustainability, Emily's background covers a wide range of industries and roles. Her experience includes, but is not limited to, conducting and publishing research in bioremediation; advancing electrical instruments and controls at a polysilicon chemical plant; performing competitive benchmarking and creating interactive dashboards at a leading solar company; applying thermal and moisture performance tools, such as THERM and WUFI, to current events like the Texas Energy Crisis; employing data-driven modeling techniques to EV charging to assess grid flexibility services; and measuring the impact of COVID-19 on residential buildings through the analysis of high-resolution, disaggregated energy use data. Looking forward, Emily plans to successfully integrate and improve sustainability in existing structures/spaces through building energy efficiency while preserving the health, safety, privacy, affordability, and culture of occupants. Emily's technical ambitions include machine learning, engaging informational platforms, smart technologies, energy modeling and analysis, occupant behavior in buildings, and building-grid interactions. She graduated in 2022.
Her LinkedIn profile is here.
Matt Roberts
Matthew Roberts is an undergraduate student at MSU and was involved with the Professorial Assistantship program that the university offers. He is studying Civil Engineering and is a part of the MSU marching band. Matt enjoys mountain biking, photography, and downhill skiing. Hates spaghetti. Loves blueberry doughnuts.
Don Madhawajayaweera
Don is an undergraduate student at Michigan State University majoring in Computer Science and a minor in Game Design. He is researching ways to increase energy efficiency by analyzing the behavior patterns of occupants in households under the guidance of Professor Cetin. He hopes to use his knowledge to solve interesting problems in different fields in data science.
Mike Miller
Mike is pursuing his bachelor's degree in Advertising Management. Mike is from Grand Rapids, MI, and has done professional work involving re-branding for local markets, social media maintenance, and improvement of customer experience. Mike finds his passion through working on brand identity, and how to find a target market and portray a brand to be appealing towards this market. Mike is currently involved with the Advertising Association at Michigan State University, and is expected to graduate in the Spring of 2023.
His LinkedIn profile is here
Sam Evans
Samuel Evans, an Electrical Engineering Undergraduate at Michigan State University, was a Undergraduate Research Assistant (URA) from 2020-2022. He worked on the development/maintenance of residential HVAC controllers, designing a camera-based ground truth methodology, and discovering ways to connect devices to the IoT for better data recording methods and control. The main component used to accomplished this have been implementing microcontrollers (mainly Raspberry Pi's and ESP32's).
Coleson White
Coleson is a Mechanical Engineering student at Michigan State University. He worked for Dr. Cetin for two semesters as an undergraduate research assistant on programming and data cleaning. He is currently on his second rotation with PPG in Huntsville, Alabama working with aerospace transparencies where he is hoping for a full time offer in the fall. Along with that he has had a co-op with tier one automotive supplier BorgWarner. He has held a board position with the Engineering Student Council at MSU and is involved in a campus ministry called Cru.
His LinkedIn profile is here.
Zachary Ruddick
Zach is a graduate of the MSU Civil Engineering program and a former URA on Dr. Cetin's research team. Born and raised in the Lansing area, Michigan State University was the obvious choice for my engineering education. Originally, he chose to pursue an engineering degree because he was strongly interested in a career within electrical infrastructure but chose civil engineering over electrical engineering because he wanted to study sustainable and renewable infrastructure. Zach was extremely excited to join the team in early 2020 because he had no exposure to the academic research process. It was rewarding to learn more about the current challenges and barriers to the improvement and widescale implementation of automated occupancy-based building utility systems. Zach hopes to play a role in the future implementation of smart infrastructure system in my future career within engineering consulting.
His LinkedIn profile is here.
Brady Berg
Brady Berg is an undergraduate at Michigan State University where he is majoring in computational data science. His interest in data science began after seeing the expanding possibilities of machine learning and algorithms through big data. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with friends and VR gaming. Brady started researching at MSU in 2021 and plans to pursue a career in developing new ways to gain insights from data.
His LinkedIn profile is here.