Investigator: Yongyun Hwang
Microorganisms are present in almost every part of temperate aqueous environments, and they play a critical role in pathogenic infection, digestion, reproduction, and food chains in the oceans. Many swimming microorganisms often exhibit collective behaviours, and it often originates from interaction of the microorganisms' motility with surrounding fluid flows. The focus of the current research is aimed at understanding how these collective dynamics of the swimming microorganisms (particularly biflagallate algae, e.g. Chlamydomonas) interact with instabilities in shear flows. Another important recent research is to find efficient mixing strategies of the microorganism suspensions using optimal control theory for biofuel harvesting.