Fluid Dynamics and Health/Disease TransmissionFlows driven by surface tension are both ubiquitous and diverse. They play a key role in the transmission of diseases in plants, animals, and humans via droplet formation and bubble bursts. The fundamental physical principles underlying such flows provide a unifying framework to interpret the adaptations of the microorganisms, animals, and plants that rely upon them. Our group's research focuses on a range of problems where droplets, bubbles, interfacial flows, and pathogen-fluid interactions can shape disease transmission and environment contamination (e.g. hospitals). Our approach is to combine direct observations, experiments, and mathematical modeling to describe pathogen transmission from host to host. |
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Mathematical Epidemiology and Disease Spread ModelingOutbreaks of infectious diseases continue to occur with devastating impacts, threatening health, economic and social conditions of millions. The transmission of pathogens involves a complex interplay between the spatio-temporal dynamics of the host, the ecology of the pathogen, the indoor environment, and human activities. Despite increased monitoring, control measures for most recurring infectious diseases or new emerging pathogens remain insufficient to mitigate spread, occurrence, and re-occurence. This aspect of the research in the group focuses on revisiting the dynamics of disease spread combining mathematical modeling, data on host or pathogens and new insights gained from our study of the fluid dynamics of disease transmission. |
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Turbulence and Multiphase FlowsI am an old man now, and when I die and go to heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids. And about the former I am really rather optimistic. Horace Lamb (1932) The Komolgorov theory for three-dimensional isotropic and homogeneous turbulent flows relies on dimensional analysis and the observations of turbulent flows showing an energy transfer from the larger to smaller structures of the flow. Observations showed that the energy injected in the larger scales of the turbulent flow is dissipated at the smaller scales. The question is how the energy gets from the large to the small scales. The father of the modern concept of the “energy cascade” is Richardson (1922). His observations led him to propose a multistage process of energy cascade in which the large structures pass their energy onto slightly smaller structures, which in turn pass their energy to even smaller structures, and so on. Although well established, these results do not describe the full myriad of turbulent flows encountered in practice, and the search for a more complete or unified theoretical approach describing all turbulent flows remains elusive. Whether we consider the terrestrial atmosphere, ocean, mantle, or clouds emitted during sneezes or coughs, turbulence is combined with a complex range of other effects such as rotation, stratification, topography, multiple fluid phases, etc. Understanding their dynamics is surely not just about recreating replicates of these flows, but studying and thus understanding a hierarchy of different but related systems (Hide, 1983). Only then will we be able to truly understand the physical picture governing such flows, and thus possibly predict them. In that spirit, various works on homogeneous turbulent flows in rotation and multiphase flows are grouped in this section. |