His lecture was titled “Seeking Intersections Between Disciplines: ‘Boundaries’ in Multiphase Flows.”
Stone is the Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor and Chair in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. His research interests are in fluid dynamics, especially as they arise in research and applications at the interface of engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology. In particular, he and his group developed original research directions in microfluidics including studies and applications involving bubbles and droplets, red blood cells, bacteria, chemical kinetics, etc. He received the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), and is past Chair of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the APS.
For ten years, Stone served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and is currently on the editorial or advisory boards of New Journal of Physics, Physics of Fluids (until 31 December 2015), Langmuir, (until 31 December 2015), Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Soft Matter, and is co-editor the (new) Soft Matter Book Series. He is the first recipient of the G.K. Batchelor Prize in Fluid Dynamics, which was awarded in August 2008. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2009, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2014.
Abstract: Fluid dynamics is a discipline with a long history, and has a distinctive feature that it links engineering, mathematics and physics, and provides many avenues for intersections with biology. In this talk I will provide one view of the ways that mechanics, and in particular fluid dynamics, yields insights into a wide variety of "multiphase" flow problems. The talk will begin with brief examples that include fluid motions generated by living organisms, flows influenced by surface microtextures, and various examples involving bacteria, biofilms and flows. We will then highlight three recent research studies in my group: (i) using the flow of a single bubble in a suspension-filled tube to act as a filter by particle size, and to do so in a speed-dependent manner, (ii) the motion of a particle adjacent to a flexible membrane, which produces interactions capable of separating particles by size, and (iii) patterns naturally formed in a café latte.