Chemist—MHK Advanced Materials & Coatings
Biography
Bernadette A. Hernandez-Sanchez has been with the Water Power Technologies Program since 2009 and is a principal member of the technical staff. Bernadette leads the Advanced Materials Program and the Department of Energy’s MHK Composite Materials Database. The applied research and development from these two programs provides developers solutions to overcome their materials and coatings needs that hinder device’s construction, performance, maintenance, or reliability.
Since 2009, Bernadette’s research team has developed marine hydrokinetic (MHK) specific coatings (anti-biofouling & anti-corrosion), worked with MHK industry to pinpoint critical materials & coatings needs, and has investigated materials performance for MHK environments. The MHK Composite Materials Database is a result of this research and is an open source database that features performance data on composite materials being explored by developers.
Bernadette earned her bachelor’s in chemistry from New Mexico Tech and her PhD in solid state inorganic chemistry from Colorado State University. She joined Sandia as a student intern and returned in 2004 as a postdoctoral researcher. In 2008, she became a senior member of technical staff in Sandia’s Ceramic Processing & Inorganic Materials Program.
