is the CSO and co-founder of Laser Thermal, Inc, a company in based in Charlottesville Virginia that has commercialized thermal conductivity measurement systems that provide non-contact metrologies for thermal properties of thin films, coatings and bulk materials. The mission of Laser Thermal is to provide accessible thermal measurements of materials, focusing on thin-film thermal conductivity with nanoscale resolution. By utilizing optical technologies, Laser Thermal provides simple, accurate, and rapid measurements of thermal properties, leading to increased customer knowledge of material properties.

Patrick is also a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Physics. Patrick has been on the faculty of UVA since 2011, following a Harry S. Truman Postdoctoral Fellowship at Sandia National Labs. Patrick’s current research interests are in energy transport, laser-material processes and nanoscale and ultrafast processes in condensed matter, soft materials, liquids, vapors and plasmas. Patrick’s group at the UVA uses various optical thermometry-based experiments to measure the thermal conductivity, thermal boundary conductance, thermal accommodation, strain propagation and sound speed, and electron, phonon, and vibrational scattering mechanisms in a wide array of bulk materials and nanosystems.

In the general fields of nanoscale heat transfer, laser interactions with matter, and energy transport, storage and capture, Patrick has authored or co-authored over 275 technical papers (peer reviewed), and has been awarded 5 patents focused on materials, energy and laser metrology for measuring thermal properties. Patrick has been recognized for his accomplishments in these fields via an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the ASME Bergles-Rohsenhow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer, the ASME Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award, and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineering, for which Patrick met President Barack Obama in 2016. Patrick is a fellow of ASME and a recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers.