Name: Vyshnavi Chilla
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Class of 2026
Hometown: Andhra Pradesh, India

Internship Company and Job Title: Tidal Metals, Process Engineer Intern
I had the opportunity to intern at Tidal Metals, a seed-funded startup I connected with through the campus Spring Career Fair. The company is focused on strengthening the domestic magnesium supply chain in the U.S. by extracting green magnesium from seawater, aiming to replace China’s carbon-intensive black magnesium.

During the internship, I worked on the Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) for both First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) and Nth-of-a-Kind (NOAK) commercial plant designs. I also worked on their patent adsorbent technology and supported inventory optimization. This experience was incredibly enriching, allowing me to connect the technical and financial dots from my past experience in manufacturing at Mondelez International Private Limited. I now understand how financial drivers like CAPEX and OPEX targets influence decisions, motivating teams to pursue operational excellence with unyielding commitment to safety and quality, with greater precision and intent.

What particularly enhanced my contributions was the academic preparation I received at Penn. The course CBE 5215 Energy and Sustainability: Science, Engineering and Technology, taught by Prof. Lorena Grundy, helped me develop a strong understanding of energy systems, lifecycle emissions, and techno-economic analysis (which was an integral part of my course final project – Specialty Recycling: A Gap Analysis of Penn’s Existing Specialty Recycling of Batteries) all of which were central to the work I did at Tidal. Meanwhile, CBE 5600 Water Treatment Engineering, taught by Prof. Samantha McBride, deepened my understanding of mass transfer, adsorption, and separation processes. Although the course focused on freshwater and wastewater treatment, the principles I learned, especially around unit operations, helped me quickly grasp the process of magnesium extraction from seawater. These courses gave me a solid foundation not just to understand the science, but to ask better questions, challenge assumptions, and contribute at both the technical and strategic levels from the very start.