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Photo of Pickel, Andrea

apickel@UR.Rochester.edu

Andrea Pickel

Assistant Professor

Department Research Areas

Advanced Materials Science and Engineering
Nano and Micro-scale Engineering
Thermal Fluids Systems and Transport Phenomena

Joining January 2026

Andrea Pickel will join the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin in January 2026. Her research focuses on harnessing luminescent probes and spectroscopic techniques to develop micro- and nanoscale thermal metrology for challenging operating environments. Current applications of interest include device thermal management, catalysis, and crystallization. Andrea is the recipient of an American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (ACS PRF) Doctoral New Investigator Award (2020), a Furth Fund Award (2021), and an NSF CAREER Award (2022), and she was named a Scialog Fellow for Automating Chemical Laboratories (2024). Her teaching contributions have been recognized with the G. Graydon Curtis ’58 and Jane W. Curtis Award for Non-Tenured Faculty Teaching (2023). Andrea received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2019, where she was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and a UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellowship. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with University and College Honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 2014. Prior to joining UT Austin, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester from 2019–2025.

Selected Publications
  1. Hu, F.*, Ye, Z.*, Pickel, A. D.+, & Tenhaeff, W. E.+ (2025). Operando characterization of lithium battery internal temperatures via upconverting nanoparticle thermometry. Nanoscale, 17, 14597–14606. https://doi.org/10.1039/D5NR01160D 
  2. Ye, Z., Harrington, B., & Pickel, A. D. (2024). Optical super-resolution nanothermometry via stimulated emission depletion imaging of upconverting nanoparticles. Science Advances, 10, eado6268. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ado6268 
  3. Harrington, B.*, Ye, Z.*, Signor, L., & Pickel, A. D. (2024). Luminescence thermometry beyond the biological realm. ACS Nanoscience Au, 4, 30–61. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnanoscienceau.3c00071 
  4. Ye, Z., Bommidi, D. K., & Pickel, A. D. (2023). Dual-mode operando Raman spectroscopy and upconversion thermometry for probing thermal contributions to plasmonic photocatalysis. Advanced Optical Materials, 11, 2300824. https://doi.org/10.1002/adom.202300824 
  5. Bommidi, D. K., & Pickel, A. D. (2021). Temperature-dependent excited state lifetimes of nitrogen vacancy centers in individual nanodiamonds. Applied Physics Letters, 119, 254103. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0072357