As a visiting student, Lauren Creadore continued her work in the area of large-scale, high-speed combustion at the Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi). The Italian university, who’s name translates to Polytechnic University of Milan, is home to the CRECK (Chemical Reaction Engineering and Chemical Kinetics) Modeling Group. Led by Dr. Tiziano Faravelli, an expert in modeling the kinetics of thermal carbon conversion processes, the group hosted Creadore during her brief visit to Milan. While there, she was introduced to the group’s numerical simulation software, OpenSMOKE++, which she used to model polymer decomposition.