I am a Research Engineer II and member of the research faculty in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where I work in the Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory. My research encompasses hydrodynamic instabilities, turbulent mixing, environmental flows, and biological and bio-inspired fluid dynamics.
My work examines the mechanisms governing the development of instabilities and the transport of momentum, heat, and mass in flows with interacting density gradients, turbulence, and external forcing. Research topics include shock-driven variable-density mixing, double-diffusive convection, nonlinear internal waves, and turbulent scalar transport. In biological and engineered systems, I investigate aquatic locomotion, the hydrodynamic interactions of zooplankton with their environment, fluid–structure interactions in soft robotic swimmers, and magnetically driven interfacial flows.
My research uses advanced experimental diagnostics to develop and apply simultaneous velocity–scalar measurements and three-dimensional flow imaging to connect flow structures with mixing, transport, and propulsion. Alongside these activities, I mentor undergraduate and graduate researchers and teach through Georgia Tech’s Vertically Integrated Projects program, including the Flow Dynamics of Soft Robotic Swimmers team.
My research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. Department of Energy, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, with additional support from the Georgia Tech Space Research Institute and the Karen and John Huff Chair endowment.
I earned my Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech, an M.Sc. in Energy for Sustainability from the University of Coimbra, an M.Sc. in Automotive Engineering from the Iran University of Science and Technology, and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tehran. Following my Ph.D. in 2019, I held a postdoctoral research appointment at Georgia Tech before joining the research faculty in 2022.