Bio
Luis Estevez is currently a 5th year PhD. candidate in Materials Science and Engineering. Luis is a non traditional student that decided to pursue an engineering degree after spending several years managing his family's restaurant. Lou chose to go to the University of Maine at Orono where he obtained a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, graduating Magna Cum Laude. For his senior design project Lou was an integral part of a four person team that designed, built and tested a long distance dog sled to be run the Alaskan Iditarod.
While pursuing his B.S. at Maine, a summer internship spent at Los Alamos National Laboratory proved pivotal to Luis. Lou spent the summer of his junior year participating in the Los Alamos Dynamics Summer Session (LADSS) where he was put into a three member multidisciplinary team and tasked with using non linear acoustics to detect fatigue cracks in aluminum sheets for structural health monitoring applications. Luis was completely immersed in advanced research for the first time and was immediately smitten. When Lou asked how he could do this for a living, he was told he needed a PhD. Thus, Lou soon started the process of investigating and applying to graduate programs and chose to realize his potential at Cornell University. The summer before starting at Cornell, Lou married his long time girlfriend, Erin. This was the best part of a busy summer that saw Luis graduate, propose, get married and move into Ithaca within a period of three months!
At Cornell, Lou joined Emmanuel Giannelis' research group and began working on various organic/inorganic nano-hybrid materials systems, particularly those with Energy applications. Lou is currently exploring using ice templating to synthesize porous carbon materials and looking into their potential applications as battery electrodes. As he nears the end of his PhD. candidacy, Lou is looking forward to continuing his career in the industrial sector; continuing to synthesize novel materials to solve vexing energy problems. When not engulfed with his research, Lou finds himself working on his newly purchased home and using it for BBQ get togethers with family and friends. He also enjoys snowboarding, playing guitar and has recently gotten into brewing beer.
Research
