Our Team
Lab Director
Dr. Yalin is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University. He joined in 2002.
Dr. Yalin received his undergraduate degree in engineering physics from Queen’s University in 1995, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University in 1997 and 2000 respectively, and held a post-doctoral position at Stanford University from 2000-2002.
At CSU, he serves as the director of the Center for Laser Sensing and Diagnostics which includes approximately 10 students researchers. He is also the director of the CSU NASA Space Grant program.
Post-Doctoral Researchers
Victorien joined CLSD in the fall of 2023 as a postdoctoral fellow after completing his Ph.D. from CentraleSupélec, Université Paris-Saclay. During his Ph.D., he worked at the EM2C laboratory on the stabilization of lean flames with nanosecond discharges to reduce NOX emissions. His current research is focused on using spectroscopic diagnostics to characterize laser-induced plasmas produced by dual femtosecond/nanosecond laser pulse techniques.
Graduate Students
Parneeth joined CLSD as a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK). During his master’s he worked at the Combustion and Flame Dynamics Lab at IITK to study and investigate the exhaust emissions from a gas turbine engine. Currently, Parneeth is working on developing a Filtered Rayleigh Scattering diagnostic to study laser-plasma ignition.
Junaid Ahmed joined the research group in the spring of 2024. He brought expertise from a Master’s in aerospace engineering where he worked with propulsion systems. Specializing in laser diagnostics, Junaid will work on fundamental studies of Two-photon Absorption Laser Induced Fluorescence (TALIF) for neutral detection within plasmas.
Seth joined CLSD in the fall of 2022, as an M.S. student. He completed his B.S. in mathematics at Virginia Wesleyan University. He is focused on utilizing Two-photon Absorption Laser Induced Fluorescence for neutral detection in plasma plumes of hollow cathodes and Hall thrusters, and as a flow-tagging velocimetry tool.
Bilal Khan completed his B.S. in mechanical engineering at CSU in Spring 2021 and joined CLSD in Fall 2021. As an undergraduate, Bilal worked with the group on laser sensing of methane emissions and is continuing related work on atmospheric sensing as a masters student.
Evan joined CLSD in the spring of 2023, while completing his B.S. in mechanical engineering at CSU. He works on the laser sensing of ozone and benzene emissions and is continuing his work on high voltage laser triggered switches as a master’s student.
Seth joined the research group in Spring of 2024 as a M.S. student. He completed his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with an Aerospace Cncentration at Colorado State University. His current research centers on studying the characteristics of plasmas produced via dual-pulse laser ignition by femtosecond and nanosecond pulses. He is co-advised by Professor Ciprian Dumitrache.
Undergraduate Students
Brian joined CLSD in the fall of 2023 as part of his undergraduate research practicum. He is working on the experimental setup of an ammonia plasma reformer utilizing cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) to measure the NH₂ fuel radical.
Neylson joined the CLSD in the fall of 2023. He is assisting with the high voltage laser triggered switch project sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories. He plans to continue as an Undergraduate Research Practicum student in the fall of 2024.
Jon joined CLSD in the fall of 2023 as part of his Undergraduate Research Practicum. He is working an experimental setup using two-photon laser induced fluorescence (TALIF) to measure neutral particle densities in Hall Thrusters.
Alumni
Research Scientists and Post-Doctoral Researchers
- Ciprian Dumitrache, completed: 2017 (now faculty at Colorado State University)
- Christopher Limbach, completed: 2016 (now faculty at Texas A&M University)
- Guoxun Tian, completed: 2013
- Sachin Joshi, completed: 2012 (now at Cummins)
- Christopher Hagen, completed: 2011 (now faculty at Oregon State University)
- Binyamin Rubin, completed: 2009 (now at Veeco – IonTech)
Ph.D.
- Adam Friss, Mechanical Engineering, completed: 2019 (now at NIST)
- Laurie McHale, Mechanical Engineering, completed: 2018 (now at Picarro, CA)
- Soran Shadman, Mechanical Engineering, completed: 2018 (now at Opus)
- Ciprian Dumitrache, Mechanical Engineering, completed: 2017 (now at Colorado State University)
- Tim Vaughn, Mechanical Engineering (Co-Major Advisor), completed: 2016 (now at CSU as post-doc)
- Torben Grumstrup, Mechanical Engineering (Co-Major Advisor, completed: 2014)
- Brian Lee, Physics (Co-Major Advisor), Physics, completed: 2014 (now at Lincoln Labs, MIT)
- Lei Tao, completed: 2011 (now at Princeton University)
- Arlen Ward, completed: 2010 (now at Covidien)
- Morgan Defoort, completed: 2008 (now Factor[e] Ventures)
- Sachin Joshi, completed: 2008 (now at Cummins)
- Vijay Surla, completed: 2007 (now at Lam)
- Abdur Rahman, completed: 2005 (now at Osram Sylvania Research Lab)
M.S.
- James (Tad) Wegner, completed 2021 (now at Boeing)
- Benjamin Martinez, completed 2019 (now at Particle Measuring Systems)
- Carter Butte, completed 2019
- Charles Rose, completed 2019 (now at Sandia National Laboratory)
- Betsy Farris, completed 2019 (now at Ball Aerospace)
- Sean Walsh, completed 2016 (now at LANL)
- Herman Bravo: completed 2013 (now a Research Associate at Colorado State)
- Isiah Franka: completed 2013 (now at Raytheon)
- Nick Wilvert: completed 2013 (now at Sandia Labs, NM)
- Jake Doyle: completed 2013 (now at wind-energy company in Nebraska)
- Jordan Rath: completed 2013 (now at Raytheon)
- Randy Leach: completed 2012 (now at Sierra Nevada)
- Frank Locciano: completed 2011 (now with contractor to Sandia Labs, NM)
- Adam Reynolds: completed 2011
- James Topper: completed 2011 (now at Plasma Processing Group)
- Scott Eakle, completed: 2005 (now at South West Research Institute)
- David Ahrens: completed 2005 (now at Caterpillar)
- Vijay Surla, completed: 2004 (moved to Ph.D. program)