Steve and Tim talk with Professor Ashwin Shahani about his role as undergraduate chair, how he approaches teaching kinetics with ChatGPT and vibe coding, as well as his research in solidification science. Professor Shahani also talks about how he is incorporating his work with Hydro, an Al production company, to help them upcycle post-consumer scrap Al into high-quality products.

Short Bio:
Shahani is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. His group specializes in the application of advanced characterization methods for the study of phase and structural transformations in metallic materials. In support of his research pursuits, Shahani has won the AFOSR YIP award in 2017, ARO YIP in 2018, and NSF CAREER in 2019. Recently, in 2025, he won PECASE, the highest honor bestowed by the federal government to young scientists beginning their academic careers.

Learn more about his teaching and research activities at: https://www.ashwinshahani.com/

The YouTube video can be found here:
https://youtu.be/PGPM47J8qWc

Our YouTube channel can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/@Undercooled.Materials

This episode is sponsored by the TMS Foundation (https://www.tms.org/TMSFoundation/TMSFoundation/Default.aspx), The Electric Vehicle Center (EVC) at the University of Michigan (https://evc.engin.umich.edu/), and the University of Michigan Materials Science and Engineering department (https://mse.engin.umich.edu).