New Light: Rising Stars
in Energy and the Environment
Andlinger Center Summer Seminar Series
The New Light summer seminar series features the Andlinger Center’s Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellows and early career researchers. All seminars are in-person only and will be held from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in Maeder 103. Lunch will be served at noon.
June 2026 Line up
June 18: Jinshi Chen and Hansen Tjo
Jinshi is an Andlinger Center Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow working with Luc Deike and Michael Mueller on exploring wind-wave interactions for offshore wind. Hansen is a fifth-year graduate student working with Jonathan Conway on engineering a bacterium that converts cellulose into fuels and valuable chemical products.
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A Peek into Misaligned Oceanic Wind–Wave Interactions with High-Fidelity ModelsJinshi Chen is a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. At the Andlinger Center, Jinshi collaborates with Prof. Luc Deike and Prof. Michael Mueller to study the interaction between misaligned ocean wind and waves, with the goal of improving wave forecasting models and optimizing the efficiency of offshore wind turbines.
Prior to joining Princeton, Jinshi graduated from Cornell University with a major in physics, and earned his Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program, where he studied nearshore breaking-wave dynamics using numerical simulations, field observations, and theoretical analysis.
Sugar Transport and Engineered Metabolism in Industrial ThermophilesHansen Tjo is a 5th year Ph.D candidate in chemical and biological engineering advised by Professor Jonathan Conway. Using approaches from biochemistry, genetics, and synthetic biology, his research focuses on understanding and engineering the physiology of non-model microbes important for plant biomass-to-fuel processing.
June 25: Francisco Sáenz Castro and Debbie Zhuang
Francisco is a 2023-2024 Maeder Fellow and a graduate student working with Egemen Kolemen on liquid metals and their applications to nuclear fusion. Debbie is an Andlinger Center Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dimitrios Fraggedakis and Michael Webb on probing the dynamics of supercooled water and carbon dioxide.
July 2026 Line up
July 9: Illya Lyadov and Jungki Min
July 16: James Trettin and Anita Zhang