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» People » Dr Astha SharmaDr Astha Sharma
Astha Sharma is a research fellow at the ACT-H2 program, School of Engineering at ANU.
She grew up in India, where she experienced the impact of climate change first-hand, which motivated her to go into renewable energy research to work towards solving the problem.
Dr Sharma finished her PhD in direct solar hydrogen generation from the ANU School of Engineering in 2021. She is a physicist and finds it closely tailored to her personality and is extremely passionate about applying physics to energy applications.
Her research interest focuses on developing renewable technologies as an efficient, clean, and cheaper route to hydrogen production. Her work focuses on material development, computational modelling to understand different system configuration and limitations and techno-economic analysis for large scale hydrogen generation applications.
- Sessional academic/tutoring for various courses at under-graduate level at the Australian National University - Systems Engineering Capstone Project, Discovering Engineering, Introduction to Electronics, Engineering Systems and Designs.
- Mentored final year engineering students for industry experience program designed to provide hands-on industrial and entrepreneurial experience to engineering students in collaboration with over 150 industry partners Australia wide.
- Developed online final assessment for Engineering Systems and Designs course at ANU, 2020.
Her research interest focuses on developing renewable technologies as an efficient, clean, and cheaper route to hydrogen production. Her work focuses on material development, computational modelling to understand different system configuration and limitations and techno-economic analysis for large scale hydrogen generation applications.
Research projects across ANU:
Researcher
- Sharma, Astha, et al. "Direct solar to hydrogen conversion enabled by silicon photocathodes with carrier selective passivated contacts." Sustainable Energy & Fuels 6.2 (2022): 349-360.
- Sharma, Astha, et. al. “Quantifying and Comparing Fundamental Loss Mechanisms to Enable Solar‐to‐Hydrogen Conversion Efficiencies above 20% Using Perovskite–Silicon Tandem Absorbers.” Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research: 2000039.
- Sharma, Astha, et al. "Direct Solar Hydrogen Generation at 20% Efficiency Using Low‐Cost Materials." Advanced Energy Materials 11.34 (2021): 2101053.
- Sharma, Astha, et. al. “Photon induced separation of bio-nano hybrid complex based on carbon nanotubes and optically active bacteriorhodopsin.” Optical Materials Express 6.4 (2016): 986-992
- Karuturi, Siva Krishna, Astha Sharma, “Over 17% Efficiency Stand‐Alone Solar Water Splitting Enabled by Perovskite‐Silicon Tandem Absorbers.” Advanced Energy Materials 10, no. 28 (2020): 2000772.
- Joshua D. Butson, Astha Sharma, "Surface‐Structured Cocatalyst Foils Unraveling a Pathway to Hig
- h‐Performance Solar Water Splitting." Advanced Energy Materials 12.1 (2022): 2102752
- Doudou Zhang, Astha Sharma, "Unconventional direct synthesis of Ni 3 N/Ni with N-vacancies for efficient and stable hydrogen evolution." Energy & Environmental Science 15.1 (2022): 185-195.
- Bikesh Gupta Astha Sharma, "Recent advances in materials design using atomic layer deposition for energy applications." Advanced Functional Materials 32.3 (2022): 2109105.
- Doudou Zhang, Astha Sharma, "Ultrathin HfO2 passivated silicon photocathodes for efficient alkaline water splitting." Applied Physics Letters 119.19 (2021): 193901.
- Ph.D stipend and fee waiver scholarships by The Australian National University worth A$250,000 in 2017.
- Vice-Chancellor travel grant by The Australian National University worth 1500 AU$ in 2019.
- INSPIRE (SHE - Scholarship for Higher Education), A scholarship by The Department of Science and Technology, India worth INR 60000/year and project funding of INR 100000 over a period of five years. (2011-2016).
- Contributed to writing a book chapter (along with an educational video) - Towards a Hydrogen Future, The climate doomsday book.
- Volunteering for meriSTEM, ANU as a physics expert and working on content development for physics year 11 and 12 students.
