Fluid Mechanics Seminar: On Shun Pak

In this seminar, we will look at two examples from engineering and biology where fluid flows play significant roles. We will first discuss the dynamics of a micro-drop in fluid flows, which has attracted considerable attention recently because of its importance in different microfluidic applications. We will illustrate how flows can influence the interfacial tension of a drop in the presence of surfactants, and hence the motion of drops in microfluidic channels. In the second half of the talk, we will discuss how flows influence the gating of mechanosensitive channels on a vesicle, which enable biological cells to respond to their local environment. We will present a continnumm model coupling a mechanosensitive channel with the dynamics of a vesicle under different flows to investigate how the channel responds to hydrodynamic stresses.

Bio: On Shun Pak received his undergraduate education in Hong Kong before going to the United States for his graduate studies. On Shun received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at UC San Diego in 2013. He then continued his research as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University, before joining the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Santa Clara University as an Assistant professor in 2014. On Shun's research interests lie in fluid mechanics at microscopic scales, with an emphasis on problems at the interface of biology and fluid mechanics.