The Environmental and Biological Fluid Mechanics (EBFM) lab has officially launched and is looking for students! This website will be updated sporadically, but for the most up-to-date information please see the group's website at Penn State. Many thanks to the McHenry group at UCI for a great two years-- look for new details about ctenophore swimming as we begin to analyze the data obtained from last May's trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium!
I'm happy to announce that next fall I will be joining the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University as an Assistant Professor! I'm very excited to join this stellar department and to have the opportunity to start my own lab. Read more about PSU MNE (and their talented cadre of new hires) here.
I will remain at UCI for another year to finish up my postdoctoral project on ctenophore biomechanics, so please continue to watch this space for updates! If you are interested in working with me at Penn State, please click here. Just a quick post to show that we now have two tanks for swimming our Pleurobrachia! The first one will generate turbulence that is similar to their natural marine environment; the second one will generate a gentle circular flow. We'll use these tanks to test the effect of both turbulence and shear on ctenophore agility and biomechanics!
Many thanks go out to the U.S. taxpayers as I start my postdoctoral appointment, funded by the National Science Foundation's Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology! Over the next two years, I will be studying the locomotion of fascinating marine organisms known as comb jellyfish, or ctenophores. These guys are the largest known animals that swim using cilia-- they're usually between 1 and 15cm long, making them tens or hundreds of times bigger than the microorganisms that typically rely on cilia for their locomotion. In my project, I will extract some of the physical and fluid dynamic principles that allow ctenophores to remain agile and successful in the midst of complex, turbulent fluid flows. Stay tuned-- I will be using this space to share updates on this project, as well as the rest of my research.
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Margaret Byronengineering, biomechanics, fluid dynamics, navigation Archives
October 2017
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