MSE Graduate Student Researches Alternative Energy Sources
By Gabriela Esposito, Student Written Communications Assistant
UConn’s Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) graduate student Sara Pedram is from Iran; a country known for its energy exportation — specifically, oil. Ironically, the dependency much of the world has on her home country’s industry, is one of the forces that drove Pedram to focus her graduate research on renewable energy.
MSE graduate student Sara Pedram
Before Pedram ever started this research, the Iranian oil industry had influenced the direction of her undergraduate studies. “I have always enjoyed and excelled in math and science, and because Iran has a big oil and gas industry, I thought becoming a chemical engineer would be the most sensible career path for me,” she says.
Prior to moving to the United States, she had pursued her bachelor’s and first master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering from Shiraz University and Amirkabir University of Technology, respectively, in Iran. She then worked as a researcher at the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Research Center of Iran (CCERCI) and at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in France.
It was during this time in France that Pedram thought she might like to travel again. “I became highly interested in continuing to do work in another country,” she says. “The U.S. is a very diverse country with many opportunities for everyone, so I decided to build a career here.”
While the idea of pursuing highly technical studies in three entirely different countries might scare some, it excited Pedram. In 2017, she packed her bags and moved to the United States to begin looking for jobs related to chemical engineering.
However, according to her, it was very difficult to find a job having no previous work experience or degree from the U.S. “This led me to pursue a master’s degree instead. I already had my master’s in Chemical Engineering, so I wanted to study something related to my background but not the same thing,” she says.
Materials science and engineering was something that Pedram says she had become familiar with and interested in during her
past research in Iran and France. “It is a highly interdisciplinary field that deals with a number of research areas, and I found it an appropriate area for my long-term career goals. Through my research, I discovered UConn’s MSE program, which is highly-ranked and well-regarded,” she says.
