Affiliation: Michigan State University

Sevan Chanakian began researching thermoelectric materials in Dr. Jeffrey Synder's group as an undergraduate at the California Institute of Technology. She continued her work on novel thermoelectric materials as a process engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 2017, she started her PhD at Michigan State University in Dr. Alexandra Zevalkink's group, focusing on understanding the relationship between crystal structures' features and the material's macroscopic electronic and thermal properties. This work encompassed a variety of materials, including single crystals and dense polycrystalline puck

forms.

Sevan is expected to defend her PhD in the summer of 2023, after which she will work as a Senior Research Scientist at Molten Materials. There, she will tackle the ever-growing plastic waste crisis until her inevitable return to the field of thermoelectrics. Sevan's research interests are twofold. On one hand, she aims to use science to design circular frameworks that integrate with existing ecological and environmental systems. On the other hand, she focuses on experimentally quantifying fundamental electronic materials parameters, specifically carrier effective mass and carrier scattering.