People

Bhargav Rallabandi combines mathematical modeling and experiments to understand and design complex flowing systems. Bhargav received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2010 from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India. He received an MS (in 2012) and a PhD (in 2015) in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working on the fluid mechanics of oscillating bubbles. He then worked as postdoctoral researcher from 2015 to 2018 at Princeton University, studying fluid flows in elastic geometries. He joined UC Riverside in 2018, where he is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

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 the dynamics of 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 is a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. He currently works on theory and numerical simulations of fluid flows around interacting particulate suspensions.

Kritik Saxena is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering. He holds an MS from Louisiana Tech University, where his research was centered on learning the effects of surfactants on wettability. Before this, he was a Junior Research Fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology Dhanbad (ISM), India, where he worked on Ni-based superalloys in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). He holds an M. Tech. from the National Institute of Technology Calicut, where he worked on additive manufacturing of brachytherapy applicators for cancer treatment. He received his bachelor’s degree from RGPV University in Mechanical Engineering.

Fardad Haratian is an undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently working on fabrication methods for microfluidics. When not in the lab, Fardad enjoys reading and playing video games.

Rupin Nagireddy is an undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently working on modeling diffusioosmosis-driven flows in channels. Outside of his research, Rupin leads the Cooling subteam of UCR’s FSAE Highlander Racing team, responsible for testing and modeling the liquid cooling system on a formula-style electric car.