Events

(AEFM Division) Modeling swimming at the micrometer scale: numerical results, engineering applications, and challenges ahead

Date: Wednesday 14 March 2018 14:00 - 15:00

Location: ENG 3.24, SEMS, QMUL

ABSTRACT:
Many cells and microorganisms are motile: they are capable of navigating fluid environments to accomplish tasks required for survival (feeding, evading predators) or specialized functions (fertilizing the egg cell in the case of spermatozoa). I will describe the physical principles obeyed by swimming at the micro scale, the mathematical models used to describe them and numerical schemes that are derived from them. I will discuss the potentially revolutionary applications that may arise from our ability of modeling and manipulating microswimmers as well as the challenges that lie ahead.

BIO:
Dr Cecilia Rorai earned her Ph.D. from the Doctoral School in Environmental and Industrial Fluid Mechanics, University of Trieste, Italy. Later, she held post-doctoral positions at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado, and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, where she was the recipient of the postdoctoral fellowship from the Göran Gustafsson foundation. She joined Queen Mary University in 2016 as the recipient of a Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship. Her current research focus is on biological fluid dynamics. More specifically, the motion of cells in physiological systems and microfluidic devices. Her approach is theoretical and computational. Previously she worked on turbulence in superfluids and stratified flows.