Petia Vlahovska | |
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Петя Влаховска | |
| Born | 1972or1973(age 51–52) |
| Occupation | Engineer |
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| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Dynamics of a surfactant-covered drop and the non-Newtonian rheology of emulsions (2003) |
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Petia Mladenova Vlahovska [1] (born circa 1973) is a Bulgarian engineer specializing in biophysics and fluid mechanics. A 2019 Fellow of the American Physical Society and 2024 Guggenheim Fellow,she is a professor at the McCormick School of Engineering Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics. [2]
Vlahovska was born in around 1973 to engineer parents. [3] Moving from her native northern Bulgaria, [3] she obtained her MSc (1994) in Chemistry at Sofia University,where she later started her postgraduate studies as a research associate at their Laboratory of Chemical Physics and Engineering. [4] She later moved across the Atlantic Ocean to Yale University,where she obtained her MS in Chemical Engineering (1999),MPhil in Mechanical Engineering (2001),and PhD in Chemical Engineering (2003);her doctoral dissertation Dynamics of a surfactant-covered drop and the non-Newtonian rheology of emulsions was supervised by Jerzy Blawzdziewicz and Michael Loewenberg. [4] She was later a David Crighton Fellow (2004-2005) at the University of Cambridge Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. [4]
After visiting positions as an assistant professor at the Brown University School of Engineering (2003-2005) and a scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces Theory and Bio-systems Department (2005-2006),she moved to Dartmouth College's Thayer School of Engineering in 2006 and became assistant professor. [4] In 2010,she returned to Brown,while retaining an adjunct assistant professor position at the Thayer School of Engineering until 2011 and Dartmouth's department of physics until 2012;she was promoted from assistant professor to associate professor in 2013. [4] She moved to Northwestern University (where she had been a visiting scholar from 2014 to 2015) in 2017 and was promoted there to professor in 2020. [4] At Northwestern,she has also been part of the Northwestern-Argonne Institute of Science and Engineering. [4]
She and her research group research biological and physical systems through theoretical and experimental models. [5] She teaches classes in fluid mechanics and biophysics,as well as in applied mathematics and vector calculus. [4] In 2016,she was awarded the Humboldt Research Award. [6] In 2019,she was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society for "pioneering work on problems in interfacial flows and soft matter,including the fluid-structure interaction in Stokes flow,the mechanics of biomembranes,and electrohydrodynamics." [7] She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2024; [8] she intends to use the Fellowship to do research on the use of active fluids in cytological microbotics. [9]
Benjamin Widom is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Chemistry at Cornell University. His research interests include physical chemistry and statistical mechanics. In 1998,Widom was awarded the Boltzmann Medal "for his illuminating studies of the statistical mechanics of fluids and fluid mixtures and their interfacial properties,especially his clear and general formulation of scaling hypotheses for the equation of state and surface tensions of fluids near critical points."
Hassan Aref,was the Reynolds Metals Professor in the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech,and the Niels Bohr Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Denmark.
Hans Wolfgang Liepmann was an American fluid dynamicist,aerospace scientist and emeritus Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology.

Seymour Michael Blinder is a professor emeritus of chemistry and physics at the University of Michigan,Ann Arbor and a remote working senior scientist with Wolfram Research in Champaign,Illinois.
Charles Rogers Doering was a professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan,Ann Arbor. He is notable for his research that is generally focused on the analysis of stochastic dynamical systems arising in biology,chemistry and physics,to systems of nonlinear partial differential equations. Recently he had been focusing on fundamental questions in fluid dynamics as part of the $1M Clay Institute millennium challenge concerning the regularity of solutions to the equations of fluid dynamics. With J. D. Gibbon,he notably co-authored the book Applied Analysis of the Navier-Stokes Equations,published by Cambridge University Press. He died on May 15,2021.
Louise Ann Dolan is an American mathematical physicist and professor of physics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She does research in theoretical particle physics,gauge theories,gravity,and string theory,and is generally considered to be one of the foremost experts worldwide in this field. Her work is at the forefront of particle physics today.
Gretar Tryggvason is Department Head of Mechanical Engineering and Charles A. Miller Jr. Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University. He is known for developing the front tracking method to simulate multiphase flows and free surface flows. Tryggvason was the editor-in-chief of Journal of Computational Physics from 2002–2015.
Leslie Gary Leal is the Warren &Katharine Schlinger Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of California,Santa Barbara,United States. He is known for his research work in the dynamics of complex fluids.

Stephen Howard Davis was an American applied mathematician working in the fields of fluid mechanics and materials science. Davis served as McCormick School Institute Professor and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Applied Mathematics at Northwestern University. He has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher in the field of engineering. His work was acknowledged in festschrifts in 2002.
Rama Bansil serves as Professor of Physics at Boston University,a post she has held since 1997. Although trained as a physicist,her work and professional associations are multi-disciplined,with areas of expertise encompassing biopolymer engineering,polymer engineering,photonics,nanoscience,nanobiotechnology,biophysics and biochemistry.
Patricia Elisabeth Cladis was a Canadian-American physicist who specialized in the physics of liquid crystals. She was a research physicist at Bell Labs in Murray Hill,New Jersey from 1972 to 1997 before founding Advanced Liquid Crystal Technologies in Summit,New Jersey. She was a fellow of the American Physical Society and also received a Guggenheim fellowship.
James Arthur Krumhansl was an American physicist who specialized in condensed matter physics and materials science. He spent much of his career at Cornell University. He also served as president of the American Physical Society and assistant director for mathematics,physical sciences,and engineering for the National Science Foundation. In 1987 he testified before Congress that the Superconducting Super Collider would be too costly.
Mark Samuel Nelkin is a theoretical physicist at the Cornell University.
Aditi Sen De is an Indian scientist,a professor in quantum information and computation group at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute,Prayagraj. She was born on 1 October 1974 in Kolkata,India. She is known for her research on quantum information and computation,quantum communication including quantum cryptography,quantum optics and many-body physics. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research,the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research,awarded her the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology for her contributions to physical sciences in 2018. She is the first female physicist to be given this honour. In 2022,she was elected as a member of Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science Academy.
Michael P. Brenner is an American applied mathematician and physicist.
James L. Skinner is an American theoretical chemist. He is the Joseph O. and Elizabeth S. Hirschfelder Professor Emeritus at the University Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Welch Foundation. Most recently,Skinner was the Crown Family Professor of Molecular Engineering,professor of chemistry,director of the Water Research Initiative and deputy dean for faculty affairs of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. Skinner is recognized for his contributions to the fields of theoretical chemistry,nonequilibrium statistical mechanics,linear and nonlinear spectroscopy of liquids,amorphous and crystalline solids,surfaces,proteins,and supercritical fluids. Skinner is the co-author of over 230 peer-reviewed research articles.
Theodore H. Berlin was an American theoretical physicist.

Eckart Heinz Meiburg is a German-American professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California,Santa Barbara. His research focuses on using computational fluid dynamics to study phenomena including sediment transport in gravity and turbidity currents,double diffusive instabilities,and particle-laden flows.
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Amparo Galindo is a Spanish chemist who is Professor of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. She is the co-director of the Institute for Molecular Science and Engineering. Her research considers the development of statistical mechanics and simulations to understand industrial processes. She was awarded the 2023 Institution of Chemical Engineers Guggenheim Medal.