Shubham Sharma
Phd CANDIDATE in energy, ENVIRONMENT, and chemical engineering
EXPECTED graduation 2027
This summer, my Pivot 314 experience gave me an opportunity to look at a familiar problem from a very different perspective.
As a PhD student studying combustion and aerosol science, I spend much of my academic work thinking about how fuels burn, how particles and pollutants form, and how combustion conditions influence emissions. During my Pivot 314 fellowship with Impossible Sensing, I was able to take that scientific background and ask a more industry-focused question: Can better sensing help large industrial combustion systems operate safely and responsibly?
Impossible Sensing develops advanced sensing technologies for challenging environments, applying expertise in spectroscopy and optical measurements to problems on Earth and beyond. My summer project explored the feasibility of applying advanced sensing approaches to industrial combustion operations.
One of the most valuable parts of the experience was learning that improving an industrial process is rarely just about finding a better measurement. A technology must ultimately provide information that helps someone make a better decision. For combustion systems, that meant thinking beyond individual measurements and considering what a user actually needs to know about the state of the combustion process.
My project involved studying existing combustion-monitoring technologies, evaluating potential sensing approaches, and examining how improved information could translate into safer environmental alternatives.
This required me to develop skills beyond those I normally use in my PhD. Instead of focusing only on whether something was scientifically possible, I had to consider questions of practicality, economics, integration into existing facilities, and the needs of the people who would ultimately use the technology.
That shift in perspective was probably my most significant takeaway from the summer.
Academic research teaches us to understand problems deeply. Industry asks an additional question: What can we do with that understanding? Through Pivot 314, I experienced the intersection of those two ways of thinking.
The fellowship also reinforced the type of work I hope to pursue in the future, where engineering fundamentals, experimentation, data, and emerging technologies combine to solve real energy and environmental challenges.
Sometimes innovation does not begin by completely redesigning a process. It begins by measuring it better.
