Research Interests
I direct the Simulations of Flow Physics and Acoustic (SOFIA) Laboratory . Our group's research falls into the categories of fluid dynamics and acoustics. We are particularly interested in:
- The fluid mechanics of biological and bio-inspired locomotion.
- Physics and control of flow interactions with moving, deforming boundaries.
- Numerical simulation of transitional and turbulent hypersonic boundary layer flows
- The interaction of sound and fluid flow.
- Development of novel computational methods for investigating unsteady flow physics.
- Control of acoustically-driven instabilities.
Recent papers: (more)
- Fluid transport and coherent structures of translating and flapping wings
- Performance improvement through passive mechanics in jellyfish-like swimming
- High-Amplitude Pitch of a Flat Plate: an Abstraction of Perching and Flapping
- A reconciliation of viscous and inviscid approaches to computing locomotion of deforming bodies
- Acoustic modeling of perforated plates with bias flow for Large-Eddy Simulations
Students and Postdocs
Graduate students:
- Syed Rehman (5th year)
- Tingting Juan (5th year)
- Marcello Ferrari (4th year)
- Maziar Hemati (3rd year)
- Albert Medina (3rd year)
- Kwitae Chong (2nd year)
- Chengjie (Tony) Wang (1st year)
- Michael Calkins (5th year, co-advised with Prof. Jonathan Aurnou)
- Patrick Greene (4th year, co-advised with Prof. John Kim and Prof. Xiaolin Zhong)
Undergraduates:
- Ryan Conversano
- Emily Chu
- Sung Park
- Julie Curtis
Recent students:
- Megan M. Wilson (M.S., 2009)
- Oliver Ortlieb (undergrad researcher, Summer 2009), Harvey Mudd College
- Jonathan Toomey (Ph.D., 2009), Boeing Company, Phantom Works
- Jeany L. Zhang (Ph.D., 2008), Intel Corp.
- David Pisani (BS, 2009), grad student in UCLA MAE Dept
- Osamu Tomuro (BS, 2008)
- Daniel Hector (BS, 2007)
- Noah Kim (BS, 2006)
- David Kincaide (BS, 2005)
- Matthew Tuttle (BS, 2004)
Recent visitors:
Teaching
- MAE 103 Elementary Fluid Mechanics (F05)
- MAE 150A Intermediate Fluid Mechanics (W05,W07,W09,F09,W10)
- MAE 153A Engineering Acoustics (S04,S06,S08)
- MAE 157 Basic Mechanical Engineering Laboratory (W04)
- MAE 250A Foundations of Fluid Dynamics (F04,F06,F07,F08)
- MAE 250E Spectral Methods in Fluid Dynamics (S05)
- MAE 150G/250G Fluid Dynamics of Biological Systems (formerly 259A,150D) (W06,W08,S09,S10)
Education
- Post-doctoral researcher (2001-2003), Cambridge University Engineeering Department
- Ph.D. 2002, Caltech, Mechanical Engineering
- M.S. 1997, Caltech, Mechanical Engineering
- B.S. 1996, Cornell University, Mechanical Engineering
Other information
- Member, AIAA Fluid Dynamics Technical Committee, 2007-present
- Member, NSF Teragrid Resource Allocation Committee, 2008-present
- Co-founder, Southern California Symposium on Flow Physics, 2007-present
- NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, 2007-2012
- Susan and Henry Samueli MAE Teaching Award, June 2006
- Richard Bruce Chapman Award, Caltech, June 2002
- Caltech GSC Teaching Assistant Award, June 2000