About Me
I am a Mechanical Engineering PhD Candidate at Carnegie Mellon University at the intersection of Energy Storage, Computational Science and Education. My advisor is Prof. Venkat Viswanthan . Our work puts a strong focus on innovating towards clean, sustainable and efficient energy sources grounded in fundamental science.
I was born and raised in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and have always had an interest in science and engineering as well as methods to improve access to science education through practice, policy and culture shifts.
Publications
Leder, A., Anderson, A.J., Billard, J., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Formaggio, J.A. , Hasselkus, C., Newman, E., Palladino, K., Phuthi, M., Winslow, L., Zhang, L., 2018. Unfolding neutron spectrum with Markov Chain Monte Carlo at MIT research Reactor with He-3 Neutral Current Detectors. J. Inst. 13, P02004–P02004. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/13/02/P02004
Butterworth, J., Triqueneaux, S., Midlik, Š., Golokolenov, I., Gerardin, A., Gandit, T., Donnier-Valentin, G., Goupy, J., Phuthi M.K., Schmoranzer, D., Collin, E., Fefferman, A., 2022. Superconducting aluminum heat switch with 3 nΩ equivalent resistance. Review of Scientific Instruments 93, 034901. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0079639
Conferences
8/1/2022: Attended the IAIFI summer school on the applications of Physics in Machine Learning and Machine Learning in Physics
6/5/2022: Presented a poster at the Gordon Research Conference for Batteries on the development of a Machine Learning Interaction Potential.
Research
Current broad research interests at CMU are:- Machine Learning for Material Discovery
- Room Temperature Superconductivity
- Next-generation Energy and Battery Materials
- Density Functional Theory (DFT) Simulations
- Computational Materials Science
- Experimential Particle Physics
- Building low cost remote controlled muon detectors
- Designing the world's most sensitive neutrino mass experiment using Indium calorimeters
- Ultra-low Temperature Physics
- Continuous cooling below 1mK using cyclic adiabatic demagnetization and superconducting heat switches
- Using FPGA based Red Pitaya board to build a low cost lock-in amplifier
Press Highlights
- My data science internship work in Sierra Leone was featured in MIT News
- My contribution to the design of a Muon detector was featured in Physics Today.
- My work on building Machine Learning models for performing molecular Simulations on the world's most powerful computer chip (Cerebras CS-1) at the time was featured in HPC Wire.
Teaching and Outreach
I have frequently volunteered/worked as a teacher for:- Carnegie Mellon University: Have been teaching assistant for "Introduction to
Mechanical Engineering" (24-101) for undergrads at CMU for which I won the Best TA depertmental award.
I have also been TA for an advanced graduate course in "Advanced Thermodynamics" (24-721)
- Leonard Gelfand Center : Volunteer every semester to teach middle schoolers a variety of topics at CMU.
- ZimCode : Head of Curriculum Design and instructor training for a coding school in Bulawayo Zimbabwe including the authoring of an Introduction to Python textbook for the Zimbabwean context.
- Splash : A program for over 2000 high school students in the greater Boston area hosted by MIT Educational Studies Program. Classes taught include "Thermodynamics", "Quantum Mechanics", "How Modern Modern Batteries Work", "Photovoltaics" and many more.
- Rainstorm: An online program for high school students
- MIT Office of Minority Education: Tutoring service serving first year students at MIT in their introducory courses.
- Leonard Gelfand Center : Volunteer every semester to teach middle schoolers a variety of topics at CMU.