ABSTRACT

Microfluidic platforms are useful for producing and tailoring the properties of multi-component materials, yet our current ability to structure and process thick substances is limited. Here, various aspects of high-viscosity fluids multiphase flows are investigated in microchannels to better characterize relationships between fluid properties and transport phenomena in confined microsystems. I will discuss in particular basic hydrodynamic destabilization processes between fluids having large differences in viscosity and examine combinations of miscible and immiscible fluids flow configurations. Focus is on the formation and evolution of interfacial waves, threads, and droplets to refine our understanding of high-viscosity fluid dynamics and improve manipulations of thick materials at the small scale.

BRIEF ACADEMIC/EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:

Thomas Cubaud received his Ph.D. from Paris-Sud University for his research on wetting and dewetting of patterned surfaces at ESPCI in 2001. He then moved at the University of California, Los Angeles to work as a postdoctoral research scientist in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department where his research topics included the motion of gas bubbles in microchannels and phenomena associated with liquid drop coalescence. Subsequently, he worked on microscale hydrodynamic instabilities with viscous fluids in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department and received the UCLA Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research in 2006. Dr. Cubaud joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at SUNY Stony Brook in 2007 and is the recipient a NSF CAREER Award as well as four Gallery of Fluid Motion Awards and a Frenkiel Award for Fluid Mechanics from the American Physical Society.    

MOST RECENT RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Microfluidics, multiphase flows, interfacial fluid dynamics, and soft matter physics