Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2021
  • M.Sc., Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2017
  • B.Sc., Mechanical Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Canada, 2015
Languages
  • French (Canada)

Dr. Leroy is a mechanical engineer in Exponent's Thermal Science Practice with a background in heat and mass transfer, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics. He specializes in modeling and testing of energy systems with a focus on understanding and improving energy efficiency through heat and mass transfer. Dr. Leroy has extensive experimental and modeling experience with passive radiative and evaporative cooling devices, solar thermal systems, adsorption systems, and high-temperature energy conversion. 

Dr. Leroy also has experience in assessing the design, implementation, and efficiency of HVAC systems. He has performed building-level simulations using EnergyPlus and MATLAB to estimate air conditioning energy consumption in buildings and the potential energy savings brought by passive evaporative and radiative cooling architectures when applied to buildings. Furthermore, Dr. Leroy's experience extends to 2D and 3D multiphysics modeling using COMSOL to estimate pressure drop, temperature gradients, heat losses, and combustion efficiency in various energy systems such as catalytic micro combustors, solar absorbers, heat exchangers, incandescent light bulbs, and radiative coolers.

Before joining Exponent, Dr. Leroy was a Ph.D. candidate in the Device Research Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his Ph.D., Dr. Leroy proposed and demonstrated a new passive cooling architecture targeting building cooling using an optimized infrared transparent and solar reflecting aerogel insulation and a hydrogel-based evaporative and radiative cooler. More specifically, his work included the fabrication of aerogels, optical characterization using UV-VIS and FTIR spectrophotometry, and optimization of the material by solving the radiative transfer equation. Among other works, Dr. Leroy also built several experimental setups including a guarded hot plate thermal conductivity setup, an outdoor cooling power characterization setup for passive radiative and evaporative cooling devices, a high-vacuum vacuum chamber for testing incandescent light bulbs, a high-temperature (>650°C) thermoelectric generator characterization setup, and propane a catalytic micro combustor.