Travis Wavrunek, PhD in Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, 2026
I’d like to extend my thanks to the Graduate Dean Awards Advisory Panel and the dean for recommending me for this award, as well as for the MAE department for their support in the past. I would also like to thank my advisors, Dr. Paul van Susante and Dr. Jeffery Allen, for guiding me in my research and providing insightful feedback on everything from experiment design and data analysis to leadership and teaching advice. Your shared guidance has shown me how a PhD may be a specialization of a research topic, but also a broadening of knowledge.
In high school and through my undergraduate degree, I was fascinated with the elegance of renewable energy sources and how they could take a byproduct of their environment and make something from it. During my PhD, I’ve been able to apply the same sentiment to the Moon through my research in lunar in-situ resource utilization and extreme environment power transmission. My dissertation investigates water prospecting and thermal vacuum testing of icy regolith for finding and understanding these resources, as well as cryogenic power transfer and thermal management techniques for energy storage in some of the coldest places in our solar system. By using the local environment rather than fighting it, future missions can reduce the reliance on Earth’s resources and design more risk tolerance systems.
Since starting at Michigan Tech in 2016, I’ve found the university to be the perfect place to pursue my interests and refine my passions. I initially had no expectations of pursuing a PhD – but through the support of the people I’ve met, I’ve found a way to blend my interests into a topic I can look forward to defending soon.