PROFILE:

- A creative and team-oriented individual with 3 years of experience as project engineer and research engineer

- Worked as a team leader and engineer for a fire prevention and safety design project at UNC Charlotte

- Worked as a Manufacturing/ Project Engineer at Micron Engineers

- Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering specialized in heat transfer and product development

SKILLS & INTERESTS:

- Modeling Softwares: AutoCAD, Solidworks, MathCAD, Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS)

- Programming languages: C, C++, MatLab

- MS Office: Excel, Excess, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Visio

- Manufacturing Techniques: Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen, 5S, FMEA, PM Scheduling

- Technical interests include gaining expertise in manufacturing processes and product development

- Personal interests include leadership development, customer interaction, personal and professional growth

EDUCATION:

- M.S., Mechanical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, May 2011 (GPA 3.6)

- B.E., Mechanical Engineering, Sardar Patel University, India, July 2008 (GPA 3.2)

WORK EXPERIENCE:

--- University of North Carolina at Charlotte: Research/ Project Engineer (March 2009 to May 2011)

- Project leader and engineer for a DHS sponsored research project focused on the effectiveness of pre-applied wetting agents in ultra Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) fire prevention under the guidance of mentor Dr. Joe Urbas

- Developed the process to carry out the experiments which is to be certified as an ASTM standard

- Implemented and analyzed new techniques to reduce the experimental time for improved efficiency

- Achieved Critical Flux for Fire Growth (CFFG) values by executing tests with ASTM E 1623-04 standard test method for Intermediate Scale Calorimeter (ICAL) for around 500 lab tests and full scale testing

- Executed Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) for different WUI fire scenarios to finalize the outcomes of the developed models

- Programmed a module using C language to determine the heat release rate and mass loss rate of tested samples

- Prepared reports and conducted statistical data analysis for all the tests done over the period of two years

--- Micron Engineers: Manufacturing/ Project Engineer (December 2007 to November 2008)

- Worked as a Manufacturing Engineer in a team for the industrial firm located in Gujarat, India

- Work experience includes executing lean manufacturing technique for designing and process control of the mechanical seals for the pressure vessels used in the chemical industries

- Worked in 5S and Kaizen Projects for process improvement in production line similar to modern Six Sigma process

- Performed FMEA Analysis and PM Scheduling for the existing manufacturing line

TECHNICAL WRITING:

- Palak Desai, “Effectiveness of pre-applied wetting agents as a function of Wildland Urban Interface fire exposures”, Master’s Thesis, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (2011), 1-80

- J Urbas, P Desai, J Kimble, D Murphy, A Zhou and R Myers. ”Effectiveness of pre-applied wetting agents in prevention of wildland urban interface fires- full scale tests”, Fire and Materials 2011, Interscience Communications (2011), 519-530

- Joe Urbas and Palak Desai. “The effectiveness of pre-applied wetting agents in prevention of WUI fire” Interflam 2010, Interscience Communications (2010), 1201-1212

-

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS:

- Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

- Member of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE)

- Member of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE)

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS:

- Recipient of “Grad School Non-Residential Tuition Differential” scholarship

- Attendee, “Fire and Materials 2011” conference in San Francisco, US in January 2011

- Attendee, “Interflam 2010” conference in Nottingham, UK in July 2010

- 1st place, “Best Design” and “Best Fabrication” awards for designing a F1 scaled model car for an internationally recognized competition held during TechFest-2008 at IIT, Bombay, India

- 3rd place, designed and built a bridge model for national level competition held during TechFest-2007 at IIT, Bombay, India

RELEVANT COURSES:

Advanced Manufacturing Processes, Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Mechanical Design, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Advanced Conductive Heat Transfer, Principles of Fire Behavior, Enclosure Fire Dynamics