Vivek Narsimhan

Michael Ott Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering

FRNY 1029B
Purdue University
School of Chemical Engineering
Forney Hall of Chemical Engineering
480 Stadium Mall Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2100
(765) 494-4281 (office)
(765) 494-0805 (fax)
Effective August 2017
M.S. and PhD, Stanford University in Chemical Engineering, 2015
M.A.st., University of Cambridge in Mathematics, 2009
B.S., Caltech in Chemical Engineering, 2008

Research Interests

Lab website

Dr. Narsimhan's research uses a mixture of theory, simulations, and experiments to examine problems in the areas of suspensions, complex interfaces, fluid mechanics, and polymers. He has developed mathematical models, performed simulations, and conducted experiments to describe the mechanics of droplets, red blood cells, and vesicles under various flow types and microfluidic geometries. These investigations provide insight into how complex membranes alter the mechanical stability and motion of fluid-filled particles, both individually and as a suspension. Dr. Narsimhan has also simulated the jamming and translocation dynamics of knotted polymers. He has modeled the relaxation of knotted DNA that has been validated by single-molecule experiments. These studies have possible applications in next-generation DNA mapping/sequencing as well as providing insight into the dynamics of entanglements in polymer systems.