Poornima Apte

I wrote a research-focused profile for MIT.

What if there were a way to solve one of the most significant obstacles to the use of nuclear energy — the disposal of high-level nuclear waste (HLW)? Dauren Sarsenbayev, a third-year doctoral student at the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) is addressing the challenge as part of his research.

Thought leadership writing for Salesforce executive.

What if piggybacking on a molecule with a fluorescent marker could tell us not just where the molecule is but how it’s oriented?
The technique could find a whole host of uses — from dynamically tracking cell behavior and understanding the mechanics of Alzheimer’s disease, to studying how polymer layers move in smart materials. I wrote about a pioneering technique in microscopy, a review of a scientific Nature Photonics paper.

Kevin Tong ’22 was understandably delighted as his team prepared for the March launch of the lunar lander Blue Ghost. Just a few years out of Princeton and now working for Firefly Aerospace, he was one of two propulsion systems engineers at Cape Canaveral in Florida who completed the final checks on the lunar lander. “It was pretty cool that I was one of the last people to touch it before it went to space,” he says.

Photo credit: Firefly

I wrote about the architecture of a new agent-driven AI revenue ops platform for Salesforce.

Picture the daily operations in a large warehouse. Robotic systems work here in several different ways. When a truck backs up into a loading dock, an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) might unload packages onto a conveyor belt to route them to specific shelving locations. If the boxes have to be unpacked and sorted immediately, they might move to processing stations where people and robotic systems can cut them open, and pick, sort, and package products for delivery out of the warehouse.

Feature story about fire engineering for Johns Hopkins Engineering magazine
By better understanding heat transfer, Thomas Gernay is making structures SAFIR.
by Poornima Apte

Copywriting for a premium post for ServiceNow about agentic AI. Content was heavily designed.

I reported on the restoration of a Texas habitat for the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The assistant professor in applied economics researches, among other topics, ways to make the benefits of large electrification projects more transparent.
It’s a chicken and egg situation: Should renewable energy projects launch first hoping that transmission lines to pipe generated power to distant places will follow on their heels? Or should the transmission lines be stood up first as a way to attract investments in renewable energy projects? Which comes before the other?

Student profile for MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering

In medical practice, monitoring muscle activity is one of the methods to gauge health. Tracking the thickness of the diaphragm, for example, helps evaluate pulmonary function. The traditional approach to monitoring muscle activity, electromyography (EMG), involves attaching metal electrodes to the body and studying resultant electrical signals. The stability and strength of the signals with such an approach is a challenge. It is also difficult to isolate activity from specific muscles because...

Article and resources for teens and their educators to shape a career in robotics.

Thought leadership piece for consulting company about AI predictions for 2025.