People
Lab Director
Thomas Beechem leads the Specere Laboratory at Purdue, which focuses on leveraging nanoscale phonon-physics to create thermal, spectroscopic (i.e., sensing), and infrared solutions.
Thomas Beechem is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Before joining Purdue in August of 2021, Thomas was a scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM, for 12 years where he held an affiliate appointment with the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT). During his time at Sandia, he was part of teams receiving two R&D 100 Awards, received a 2015 Defense Program Award of Excellence and was named one of Sandia’s “Up and Coming Innovators” in 2016. He has authored more than 100 archival publications, holds 7 patents, and had his work selected as the featured “cover article” on 5 separate occasions by 6 different periodicals. A fellow of ASME, Thomas served as an associate editor for its Journal of Heat Transfer for six years. At Purdue, he was awarded the Robert W. Fox Outstanding Instructor Award in 2023 from Purdue’s School of Mechanical Engineering and Purdue’s College of Engineering Faculty Excellence Award in Early Career Research in 2024.
ResearchGate | Google Scholar | Purdue Faculty Page | LinkedIn
Postdoctoral Researchers
haesung Kim
Project: Opto-Electronic Defect Metrology in Ferroelectric HZO Thin Films
Research Interests: Defect Physics, Correlative Opto-Electronic Characterization, Characterization and Modeling
Google Scholar ⇢ Linkedin ⇢
Graduate Researchers
fernando vega
Project: Electron-Based Spectroscopic Ellipsometric Imaging of Defects (Sandia Academic Alliance LDRD)
Research Interests: Optical property characterization, Oxide materials, Assistive Technology
Google Scholar ⇢ Linkedin ⇢
Walter smith
Project: Three-Dimensional Ferroelectric Microelectronics (3dFEM EFRC⇢)
Research Interests: Ferroelectric materials, Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy
Google Scholar ⇢ Linkedin ⇢
Shuhang Lyu
Project: Mechanics of Nanoscale Thru Silicon Vias
Research Interests: Microfabrication, Semiconductor packaging
Google Scholar ⇢ Linkedin ⇢
abdulaziz alkandari
Project: Anharmonic Lattice Dynamics in Thermal Transport and Spectroscopy (Co-Advised with Xiulin Ruan)
Research Interests: Nanoscale Thermal Transport, 1st Principles Computational Simulation, Phonon Physics
Google Scholar ⇢ Linkedin ⇢
Edward walker
Project: Waveguides for Near-Field Radiative Cooling
Research Interests: Microelectronics Cooling, Hardware Characterization, Thermal Physics
Andre hazbun
Project: Inverse Design of Filters for Meta Spectroscopy
Research Interests: Nanophotonic Filters, Machine Learning, Data-Driven Sensing, FDTD
Google Scholar ⇢ Linkedin ⇢
Luke johnson
Project: Characterizing Localized Stress in Oxides
Research Interests: Spectroscopy, Ellipsometry, FTIR, s-SNOM, Microfabrication
Linkedin ⇢
Nicole Peterson
Project: Polaritonic Energy Transport
Research Interests: Nanoscale Heat Transfer, Spectroscopy, Interfaces
Linkedin ⇢
mohana drishti
Project: Lock-in Detection for Near-Field Raman Spectroscopy
Research Interests: Nanoscale Heat Transfer, nano-FTIR, s-SNOM
Google Scholar ⇢ Linkedin ⇢
Undergraduate Researchers
Bach son nguyen
Project: Electro-optical Defect Characterization for Ferroelectric Memory
Research Interests: Semiconductors, Raman spectroscopy, Optical property characterization
Rana Yuvraj
Project: Calibration of Optical Monochromator
Research Interests: Raman spectroscopy, Photoluminescence spectroscopy, Thermal Physics
vaishnnavi purram
Project: Fabrication of Ferroelectric Capacitors for Spectroscopic Characterization
Research Interests: Lithography Process Development, Statistical Process Control, Characterization of High Fidelity Capacitor Fabrication
Specere Alumni
Sahej Sharma
Masters Student, 2024-2025
Bradon timms
Undergraduate Researcher, 2024-2025
Current Position:
Management Trainee
ASML, Wilton, CT
adam zgol
Undergraduate Researcher, 2025
Current Position:
System Engineer
Oceaneering, Hanover, MD
Fahad alshehri
Undergraduate Researcher, 2024
Current Position:
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Jessica Jittu
Undergraduate Researcher, 2024
Current Position:
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Epiphany white
Undergraduate Researcher, 2024
Current Position:
Dow Chemical, Freeport, TX
Arihant Kaul
Undergraduate Researcher, 2021-2024
Current Position:
Thin Films Manufacturing Engineer
Lockheed Martin Corporation, Orlando, FL
Jacob Minyard
Masters Student, 2022-2024
Current Position:
Lecturer
St. Mary’s College, St. Marys, KS
Ananya srivastava
Masters Student, 2024
Current Position:
Silicon Design Engineer
Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Santa Clara, CA
Zak Piontkowski
Post-Doctoral Researcher, 2020-2021
Current Position:
Senior Member of Technical Staff, Applied Optical and Plasma Sciences Department
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
Amun Jarzembski
Post-Doctoral Researcher, 2019-2021
Current Position:
Senior Member of Technical Staff, Applied Optical and Plasma Sciences Department
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
Elbara Ziade
Specere Mentee, 2017-2021
Current Position:
Thermal Design
Apple Inc., Seattle, WA
Christopher Saltonstall
Post-Doctoral Researcher, 2016-2018
Current Position:
Senior Member of Technical Staff
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
Michael Goldflam
Post-Doctoral Researcher, 2015-2017
Current Position:
Principal Scientist
STR, San Diego, CA
Colin Landon
Post-Doctoral Researcher, 2014-2015
Current Position:
Nanoscale Thermal Modeling Scientist
Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, OR
Ryan Shaffer
Graduate Student Intern, 2013-2015
Current Position:
Applied Science Manager, Quantum Computing
Amazon Web Services, New York, NY
Luke Yates
Undergraduate Student Intern, 2011-2013
Current Position:
Senior Member of Technical Staff
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
