At METL at NC State, led by Dr. Rohith Mittapally, we aim to develop novel solutions to energy management challenges, ranging from the semiconductor scale to large-scale power generation. Our focus is on expanding knowledge of thermal radiation and phase-change phenomena through advances in thermal metrology, micro/nanofabrication, and theoretical modeling.

Our work is multidisciplinary, spanning from fundamentals to applications, including in energy conversion, thermal management for emerging electronic, photonic, and quantum systems, and energy storage. We are also interested in emerging applications of heat and mass transfer principles in solar desalination, atmospheric water harvesting, and radiative cooling.

See the Research page for the projects we are currently excited about!!

News!!!

• [September 2026] Our undergraduates, Christo and Srihan, received MAE Undergraduate research awards supporting their research in our lab. Congratulations!

• [September 2026] Our PhD student, William Bodnar, won the prestigious NSTGRO 2026 fellowship supporting up to four years of his research in our group. Congratulations!!

• [August 2026] We are excited to have Aayush Luitel join as a PhD student in our group, Welcome!

• [June 2026] William Bodnar won the NC Space Grant's Graduate research fellowship for the year 2026-2027. Congratulations!!

• [May 2026] Dr. Mittapally received the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement award supporting his work on Engineering Interfacial Heat Transport via Polaritonic Coupling

• [February 2026] Our work on passive radiative cooling in vehicles has been published in EES. Excited to see the outcome of collaboration between Hyundai, MIT and KAIST.

• [December 2025] Our work on super-planckian radiative heat transfer between sub-wavelength parylene structures is published in Nano Letters

• [November 2025] We are excited to have William Bodnar as a PhD student in our group, Welcome!

• [Aug 2025] Dr. Mittapally started METL at NC State as an Assistant Professor of Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering