Satish Kumar
Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota
The 2025 William R. Schowalter Lecture will be given by Satish Kumar, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota.
The Interplay between Theory, Experiment, and Industrial Interaction in Fluid Mechanics: Lessons from a University-Industry Partnership
Satish Kumar, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota
Interactions with industry can serve as a rich source of fundamental research problems in fluid mechanics if approached in the right way. This involves recognizing and characterizing the complexity of industrial processes and then identifying model problems that build physical understanding, often by isolating the influence of key phenomena. In this talk, I will discuss several examples of fundamental research inspired by industrial interaction via the University of Minnesota's
Industrial Partnership for Research in Interfacial and Materials Engineering, a university-industry consortium. These examples involve (i) printing processes for electronic devices, (ii) high-speed coating flows, and (iii) stability of coatings consisting of multiple layers and components. In all cases, flow visualization experiments motivate, validate, or reveal limitations of theoretical descriptions. This interplay between theory, experiment, and industrial interaction offers lessons that may be helpful to others when interacting with companies.
About the William R. Schowalter Lecture
This lecture honors the distinguished career of William R. Schowalter, whose accomplishments span seminal research in fluid mechanics, visionary academic leadership as department chair at Princeton and dean of engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and high-level international engagement as senior adviser to three presidents at the National University of Singapore and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
Reflecting Bill’s broad contributions to chemical engineering, the lecture’s focus will alternate on a yearly basis between fluid mechanics research, broadly understood to include complex fluids and soft condensed matter, and typically delivered by an academic speaker, and topics of general interest to our profession, the latter typically delivered by an industrial speaker.
Supported by the AIChE Foundation
