Amir A. Pahlavan

About

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University working with Prof. Howard Stone (website). I completed my PhD in Mechanical Engineering at MIT working with Profs. Ruben Juanes and Gareth McKinley on wetting transitions and interfacial instabilities in confined and disordered media.

I have a range of interests in soft matter physics and interfacial fluid dynamics with applications in energy, environment, water resources and advanced materials. I combine experiments, theoretical modeling, and numerical simulations to advance our fundamental understanding and predictive capabilities of these phenomena across the scales.

I will serve as the co-chair for the 2020 Gordon Research Seminar on Flow and Transport in Permeable Media (website).

Education

• PhD, Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Sep, 2018.
  Advisors: Prof. Ruben Juanes and Prof. Gareth H. McKinley

• M.S., Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010.
  Advisors: Prof. David Saintillan and Prof. Jonathan B. Freund
  Thesis: Collective dynamics in flowing suspensions of swimming micro-organisms

• B.S., Mechanical Engineering, University of Tehran, 2008.
  Advisor: Prof. Kayvan Sadeghy

Refereed Journal Publications

1. Restoring universality to the pinch-off of a bubble.

A. A. Pahlavan, H. A. Stone., G. H. McKinley, and R. Juanes, submitted (2018).

2. Signatures of fluid-fluid displacement in porous media: Wettability, invasion events, patterns, and pressures.

B. K. Primkulov, A. A. Pahlavan, X. Fu, B. Zhao, C. W. MacMinn, and R. Juanes, submitted (2018).

3. Thin Films in Partial Wetting: Stability, Dewetting and Coarsening. (abstract)

A. A. Pahlavan, L. Cueto-Felgueroso, A. E. Hosoi, G. H. McKinley, and R. Juanes, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 845, 642 (2018).

4. Forced Wetting Transition and Bubble Pinch-Off in a Capillary Tube (abstract)

B. Zhao*, A. A. Pahlavan*, L. Cueto-Felgueroso, and R. Juanes, Physical Review Letters, 120, 084501 (2018).

*Equally Contributed.

5. Thin Films in Partial Wetting: Internal Selection of Contact-Line Dynamics (abstract)

A. A. Pahlavan, L. Cueto-Felgueroso, G. H. McKinley, R. Juanes, Physical Review Letters, 115, 034502 (2015).

* Featured as Physics Focus article
* News coverage: MIT Homepage Spotlight, MIT News, MIT Technology Review , MIT Office of the Dean for Graduate Education, MIT Energy Initiative, MIT CEE News, Department of Energy Office of Science Homepage Spotlight, Science Magazine, Inside Science from AIP/APS, Materials Today, Smithsonian Magazine, Live Science, IHS GlobalSpec, R&D Magazine, Phys.org, Nanowerk, Tech Times, Discovery, Science Daily, Science Newsline, Geek, Red Orbit, Global News Connect, Laboratory News, Lab Manager, Technology, Nano Magazine, Space Daily, EurekAlert, TechieNews, Yahoo News

6. Chaotic Dynamics and Oxygen Transport in Thin Films of Aerotactic Bacteria (abstract) (pdf)

B. Ezhilan, A. A. Pahlavan, D. Saintillan, Physics of Fluids Letters, 24 091701 (2012).

(Listed in the “Most Read” papers (Sep, 2012))

7. Instability Regimes in Flowing Suspensions of Swimming Micro-organisms (abstract) (pdf)

A. A. Pahlavan, D. Saintillan, Physics of Fluids, 23 011901 (2011).

(Listed in the “Most Read” papers (Jan, March, April, 2011))

(Featured as “Research Highlights” on the Physics of Fluids website)

8. Effect of Solid Properties on Slip at Fluid–Solid Interfaces (abstract) (pdf)

A. A. Pahlavan, J. B. Freund, Physical Review E, 83 021602 (2011).

9. On the Use of Homotopy Analysis Method for Solving Unsteady MHD Flow of Maxwellian Fluids above Impulsively Stretching Sheets (abstract) (pdf)

A. A. Pahlavan, K. Sadeghy, Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation, 14 (2009) 1355-1365.

10. The Influence of Thermal Radiation on MHD Flow of Maxwellian Fluids above Stretching Sheets (abstract) (pdf)

V. Aliakbar, A. A. Pahlavan, K. Sadeghy, Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation, 14 (2009) 779-794.

11. MHD Flows of UCM Fluids above Porous Stretching Sheets using Two-auxiliary-parameter Homotopy Analysis Method (abstract) (pdf)

A. A. Pahlavan, V. Aliakbar, F. V. Farahani, K. Sadeghy, Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation, 14 (2009) 473-488.

12. On the Analytical Solution of Viscous Fluid Flow past a Flat Plate (abstract) (pdf)

A. A. Pahlavan, S. Borjian, Physics Letters A, 372 (2008) 3678-3682.

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