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Microscale Flow Modeling
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Principal Investigator

David Saintillan

Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Ph.D. Stanford University, 2006
M.S. Stanford University, 2003
B.S. Ecole Polytechnique, 2001

Curriculum Vitae: [pdf]

dstn [at] ucsd [dot] edu

Short Bio:

Professor David Saintillan received a B.S. in Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique, France, in 2001, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2003 and 2006. He then worked as a Junior Research Scientist at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University from 2006 to 2008, and as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2008 to 2013. He joined the University of California San Diego in 2013, where he is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He currently serves as a Member-at-Large on the Executive Committee of APS Division of Fluid Dynamics, and on the editorial boards of Physical Review Fluids and Physical Review X.

Honors and Awards:

  1. Invited Professor, Paris Sciences Chair, ESPCI, Paris, France, February 2023
  2. Invited Professor, Paris Sciences Chair, ESPCI, Paris, France, February 2019
  3. Fellow of the American Physical Society, 2018
  4. Invited Professor, Joliot Chair, ESPCI, Paris, France, July 2017
  5. Teacher of the Year, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UCSD, 2014-2015
  6. Invited Professor, Joliot Chair, ESPCI, Paris, France, June 2015
  7. National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2012-2017
  8. UIUC List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
  9. Invited Professor, Total-ESPCI ParisTech Chair, ESPCI, Paris, France, July 2012
  10. Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal in Mechanical Engineering, 2011
  11. Arnold O. Beckmann Research Award, UIUC Research Board, 2010
  12. Invited Lecturer, Aix-Marseille Universite, France, July 2008
  13. Andreas Acrivos Dissertation Award in Fluid Dynamics, American Physical Society, 2007
  14. Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2006-2008
  15. Gerald J. Lieberman Graduate Fellowship, 2005-2006
  16. Edgar N. Meakin Memorial Fellowship, 2001-2003
  17. Fondation de l'Ecole Polytechnique Scholarship, 2001

Recent News

April 2025: Congratulations to Tanumoy Dhar for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation entitled: "Theoretical and computational study of active-passive particle interactions"!

April 2025: The paper "Active nematics fluids on Riemannian two-manifolds" by Zhu, Saintillan and Chern appeared in Proceegings of the Royal Society A. Click here to download the article. The paper was also featured on the cover of the April 2025 volume.

March 2025: Tanumoy Dhar and Prof. Saintillan presented at the APS Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, CA.

March 2025: The paper "Self-organized dynamics of a viscous drop with interfacial nematic activity" by Firouznia and Saintillan appeared as a Letter in Physical Review Research. Click here to download the article.

Gallery of Images

Copyright © 2021 David Saintillan
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