Sarah R. Nicholson
CEO and Co-Founder of Umny Inc.
MASc. in Mechanical Engineering
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Thank you for your patience as my website gets a renovation!
Research Areas:
- Geothermal / Geo-exchange Energy
- Thermodynamics & Heat Exchange
- Energy Modelling
- Physics + Deep Learning (AI)
- Renewable Energy Systems
- Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
Featured Publications
Geothermal Papers:
Characterization of a Novel In-Ground Heat Exchanger for Applications in Sustainable Building Energy and Maintaining Permafrost
Comparing UMNY Machine Learning Predictions of Ground Temperature and Soil Thermal Conductivity to Real-World Sensor Measurements from Across the World
Engineering Challenges:
Designing Against Aggression: Creating Built Environments That Improve Safety
Work Experience:
- Engineering / Energy Consultant (Current)
- CEO & Co-founder (Current)
- CTO & Marketing Director
- Owner & Operator – Regenerative Farm
- Research & Teaching Assistant
- Freelance Graphic Designer
How To Keep Permafrost From Melting
I used my master’s research to invent a new heat exchanger that takes the unwanted thermal energy from the ground (which is melting our global permafrost at an alarming rate), and instead put it into people’s homes and structures.
Why I Started Umny
After gaining experience in academic research, regenerative agriculture, and engineering consulting, I saw a need and joined with a team that can meet it.
Awards:
Grateful recipient of funding through grants and awards:
- NSERC Graduate Scholarship
- Clean Energy Award
- Capstone Presentation Award, Mechanical Engineering
- Thermofluids Award
- Entrepreneurship Award
- RBC Student’s Leading Change
My Creative Outlets
Beyond my technical work, I am an artist, author, and lover of sports and the outdoors. I was a freelance graphic designer for years, and also design buildings and 3-D printing projects for fun.
