The National Science Foundation selected Boise State University electrical and computer engineering, student Ellie Schlake for the prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program in 2022.
In the Fiber-optics, Lasers, and Integrated-photonics Research (FLAIR) Laboratory, senior Ellie Schlake and her mentor, Nirmala Kandadai, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, are working with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to integrate fully flexible hybrid electronic nanomaterial devices manufactured in space.
Schlake’s proposed project collaborates with the Advanced Nanomaterials and Manufacturing Laboratory and Idaho Microfabrication Laboratory to explore a new optical sintering technique for printed thermoelectric nanomaterials used in thermoelectric energy harvesting and power generating devices used in space.
“I have been one of the only girls in my engineering classes, but ever since I took an electrical engineering course I knew it was my passion,” Schlake said. “The discipline is challenging, broad, but most importantly, it is innovative. I do not want to merely experience the future of technology; I want to take part in creating it.”
Schlake is a part of the Accelerated Masters Program in the College of Engineering, giving her a head start in her graduate studies which she will begin this fall continuing her education in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Boise State.
