A summary of my professional engineering experience in real-world innovative settings.
I accepted a co-op offer from Marathon Petroleum Corporation for the Spring 2026 semester! I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to join the largest petroleum refiner in the United States!
As my co-op commences I will update this with the vast amounts of hands-on refining experience I will gain!!
I resumed my work with the Fuel Science group in Fall 2025 during my ongoing internship with the Fuels & Energetic Materials division of the University of Dayton Research Institute.
This term, I continued research on the dielectric properties of jet fuel, but also got to dive into the world of Surface Tension measurements.
I performed around 50+ surface tension experiments using pure components of standard jet fuels to commission our group's new instrument. I used around 5 different needle diameters, as well as variying temperature and air flow rates to observe trends.
I also continued working on the dielectric research, this time searching for a blending rule for FSII.
This was accomplished by mixing controlled amounts of additive into a pure bulk composition with a known dielectric constant and observing the upshift caused by the additive.
A blending rule was developed, and an academic publication is in the works. When it is finished it will be available under the Research page of this website.
Contingent on funding I will be returning to Fuel Science at UDRI for Fall 2026 and Spring 2027 part-time.
I co-oped with the Power & Energy Division at University of Dayton Research Institute, assisting with the development of a fuel desulfurization unit for the United States Air Force.
I gained valuable hands-on experience with both the design and construction of various refining process units!
I was able to observe and contribute first-hand to the design of extraction towers, catalytic reaction design, recycle processes, process flow diagrams, and more!
During the Spring semester, I worked part-time. I familiarized myself with the unit and its design, and contributed to digital sides of the effort.
During the Summer semester, I worked full-time. I was able to gain experience with process simulators with Aspen!
I had the privilege to gain experience reading and developing process flow diagrams (PFDs), piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs), and controls diagrams.
Pictured next to me is the previous design of the extraction towers that extract the sulfur from the jet fuels.
I have obtained great amounts of industry knowledge and experience throughout my ongoing internship with the Fuels & Energetic Materials division of the University of Dayton Research Institute.
I have had the privilege and opportunity to contribute to many research projects regarding aviation turbine fuels (jet fuels).
I have analyzed gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, and relative permittivity data of over 70+ international jet fuels to correlate and model various fuel properties, in some cases reviewing and correcting data to increase accuracy of analysis by up to 30%.
In one project, I used advanced simulated distillation software to generate over 100 distillation points for each jet fuel. To verify the quality and accuracy of these points, multiple software packages were used to adhere to interlab study reproducibility standards.
For another project, I tested the effects on dielectric constant of various fuel additives such as FSII, CI/LI, and SDA. The dielectric constant is likely used on modern aircraft to perform onboard fuel gauging.
The findings were quite revolutionary, and they are available under the Research page of this website.
My project on additives, as well as future work with the effects of water solubility, was recently sponsored by NASA via the Ohio Space Grant Consortium.
I collaborated with small teams of around 4 - 7 other research professionals to deliver accurate results, meeting and exceeding project deadlines.