Professor
Education
Ph.D., University of Delaware, 1996
M.S., Syracuse University, 1992
B.S., IIT-Madras, 1990
Biography
Professor Sureshkumar joined the faculty at Washington University in 1997 after completing a post-doctoral fellowship at Massachusetts institute of Technology. He currently teaches courses in transport phenomena, mathematical methods in engineering, and turbulent transport processes.
In 1997, Professor Sureshkumar was awarded the Alan P. Colburn Prize for the most outstanding doctoral dissertation in engineering and mathematical sciences by University of Delaware. In 1999, he received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. He has co-authored 70 peer-reviewed articles and 130 technical presentations, including invited talks at the APS, MRS and AIChE national meetings. His co-author list includes 16 doctoral students, three post-doctoral fellows and UG researchers several of whom have gone onto pursuing graduate studies. His doctoral students have won outstanding student paper awards at ACS (Dr. R. Magan, Colloids and Surface Chemistry Division; 2004), AIChE (Dr. R. Magan, Nanoscale S&E Forum, 2004) and Society of Rheology (Mr. Vasudevan, 2007) annual meetings.
Research
Professor Sureshkumar's specific research interests are in complex fluids dynamics, interfacial phenomena at nano/meso scales and interaction of light with nanomaterials. He is especially interested in exploring nonlinear dynamics, self-organization and emergent phenomena in such systems by utilizing multiscale theoretical/computational approaches as well as experiments.
The applications investigated by his research group include: novel active nanomaterials by self-assembly or self-organization, turbulent friction drag reduction, prediction of the flow behavior of polymeric fluids and fiber suspensions, enhanced oil recovery, electrodeposition, new generation of solar energy harvesting systems, biomolecular dynamics, colloidal/protein adsorption and study of the effect of harmful foreign bodies on alveolar function.