UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — During the annual Chemical Engineering Research Symposium, the Penn State Department of Chemical Engineering awarded Dow Solar Associate Research and Development Director Narayan Ramesh with the Early Career Alumni Achievement Award, recognizing alumni from the Department of Chemical Engineering for their outstanding contributions during the initial stages of their chemical engineering careers.
Ramesh, 38, was selected as the first recipient of the award by the department's alumni affiliate program group (APG) for his work and leadership in the process and product development, reliability, systems and installation of the Dow Powerhouse Solar Shingle, a new product from the Dow Chemical company that integrates solar power generation with the functionality of traditional asphalt roofing shingles.
The program developed by Ramesh has been so innovative within the field of chemical engineering that the director of the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative — a collaborative national program to make solar energy cost competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade — has asked Ramesh to lead a national workshop on solar engineering reliability.
In selecting Ramesh for the award, the Penn State chemical engineering APG evaluated his professional contributions, extracurricular leadership and his positive influence as a role model at Dow, within the industry and among his fellow Penn State alumni. Since obtaining his doctorate from Penn State, Ramesh has continued his involvement with the University's Department of Chemical Engineering. He has worked with Penn State to recruit talent for the doctoral program and has served on thesis committees in the department. He holds a Diamond Award for the development of Dow Powerhouse, a Gold Team Award for the launch of the Extem portfolio of polymers during his tenure at Saudi Basic Industries Corp. and the Materials Research Institute Student Research Award for research accomplishments at Penn State. He also is named on 22 patents or patent applications, and is the author of 28 presentations, six conference proceedings and nine referenced journal publications.