John Chrispell, a mathematician in the Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, will be giving the next talk in the Science Inspires Series, titled "Fluids, Ratchets, and Transportation: Moving Strange Fluids in a Unique Way." His talk will be held on Thursday, March 18, at 4:30 p.m. via .
Viscoelastic fluids include molten chocolate (need we go on?), blood, paint, and industrial oils. These fluids, when examined, exhibit potentially counter intuitive behaviors including shear thickening or thinning. In this talk, Chrispell will give a mathematical framework to explore the behavior of viscoelastic fluids using ratcheting, where periodic oscillations of a sawtooth geometry channel may cause fluid transportation. He will also discuss recent results showing how viscoelasticity enhances fluid transportation in a ratchet geometry.
The Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Science Inspires Series is offered in collaboration with IUP's Sigma Xi chapter, an honor society of scientists and engineers that rewards excellence in scientific research and encourages a sense of companionship and cooperation among scientists in all fields. These talks present lectures by prominent researchers on topics interdisciplinary in nature and of interest to faculty and students from a variety of academic fields and also to the general public.
Chrispell has been a mathematics professor at IUP since 2011 and works in the fields of numerical methods for PDEs, viscolelastic fluids, finite element analysis, and immersed boundaries. He holds a PhD degree from Clemson University, where he worked under the direction of Vincent Ervin and Eleanor Jenkins. His work prior to IUP includes a post-doctoral research position at Tulane University supervised by Lisa Fauci.
Chrispell teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in both mathematics and computer science with topics that include operations research, numerical methods, and Unix systems.