Principal Investigator

Bhargav Rallabandi is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UC Riverside. He holds a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, and master's and doctoral degrees in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University immediately prior to joining UCR.

Rallabandi's research combines modeling and experiments to understand and design a complex flowing systems, with particular emphases on applications relevant to microengineering and the environment. His current topics of research include chemically and acoustically driven colloidal transport, interactions of fluid flows with soft surfaces in biological systems, and the dynamics and mechanics of sea ice.

Graduate Students

Arash Kargar is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering at UC Riverside working on modeling suspension hydrodynamics in soft systems. He received his master’s degree in 2017 form University of Tehran where his research centered on analyzing the mechanical behavior of three types of bio-actuators, namely: hydrogel bilayers, functionally-graded hydrogel layers, and core and shell structures.  He received his bachelor’s degree from Shiraz University in 2015. He also has two years of work experience (from 2017-2019) in Pars Generator R&D center where he focused on the structural design and analysis of in-wheel electrical motors.

Xirui Zhang is a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at UC Riverside. He obtained his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Dalian Jiatong University. He is currently working on inertial flows in microfluidic channels. 

Xiaokang Zhang is currently a PhD student at University of California, Riverside. His research focuses on oscillating particles in fluids. Before joining UCR, he received the master degree from UCSD and bachelor degree in Beijing Forestry University. Besides research, he is a Formula One racing fan, hiker and endurance runner.

Jake Minten

Adewale Oluwatimehin

Undergraduate Students

Najeeb Gohil is a current senior studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Riverside. His research focuses on the response of microparticles under vibration. He has also been a part of various organizations such as Highlander Racing, the University Honors Program, and Engineers Without Borders to name a few. Aside from school, Najeeb also enjoys spending time outdoors, working out, and watching basketball or movies.

Hannah Fuertez

Alumni

Aliasgar Badani (UG researcher, now at Northrop Grumman)

Bryan Shaddy (UG researcher, now graduate student at USC)

Andrew Obermiller (UG researcher, now graduate student at USCD)