PROFESSOR ELIAS BALARAS RECEIVES NSF CAREER AWARD

Assistant Professor Elias Balaras has won a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for his project titled, "Large-Eddy Simulation of Turbulent Flows with Dynamically Moving Boundaries." The NSF CAREER program fosters the career development of outstanding junior faculty, combining the support of research and education of the highest quality and in the broadest sense.

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards for new faculty members. The CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. CAREER awardees are selected on the basis of creative, career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their institution.

Professor Balaras’ proposed research program aims at the development of new adaptive numerical techniques that enable highly accurate large-scale simulations of complex biological flows. The broader impact of the research includes areas ranging from cardiovascular medicine to biomimetics. In cardiovascular medicine, highly accurate computations of blood flow in the heart and large arteries or around medical implants will give a detailed view of the complex flow physics and provide a solid basis for multiscale simulations designed to illuminate the mechanics of blood damage and thrombus formation. In biomimetics, where the target is the abstraction of a good design from nature, detailed simulations of fish swimming, insect locomotion and bird flying can help bring to fruition novel devices (such a Micro-Aero Vehicles) and contribute a new fundamental understanding to the science of their locomotion.

Published January 1, 2004