NEWS

Dr. Rau and David had the opportunity to collaborate with the VIISTA (Virus Infection at the Interface of Sinking, Turbulence, and Aggregation) PIs and their NSF Growing Convergence Research Project. This was a one-month cruise aboard the Kilo Moana in the California Current to try to understand how viruses, microbiology, and turbulence microstructure affect carbon export in the ocean. This was a fantastic opportunity to study phytoplankton particles and aggregates in their natural environment! We sampled for biopolymers, stress markers, and performed laboratory and in-situ aggregation and disaggregation measurements! Very much looking forward to digging into this data with the broader team!

Alanso successfully completed his MS thesis and graduated in Spring 2024! His thesis was entitled “Generation and Characterization of Isotropic Turbulent Flow at Low Dissipation Rates.” He will be moving on to UMD to study hypersonics. Congratulations Alanso and wishing you the best for your PhD!

Our lab undergraduate researchers, Ashley and San, both graduated from GW! They will be finishing up a few things with the lab but then are both moving on to graduate school. So proud they chose to continue on the path of science to pursue advanced degrees. Good luck to you both!

The 2024 Ocean Sciences Meeting was great fun and a big success. The Rau Lab had a big presence in New Orleans with 2 posters and an oral presentation. Great job Ashley and David for sharing our work with the community!

The 76th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) was a great success. Since the meeting was in D.C., GWU was one of the lead host universities. Our lab had great representation with Alanso presenting his work on viscoelastic particles in turbulence and Dr. Rau presenting on the deformability of marine snow particles. Looking forward to DFD ’24!

Prof. Rau has moved to Washington DC! The transition took some time, but the lab is up and running in our nation’s capital. Rebuilt starting in Fall 2022, the lab now houses substantial fluid mechanics experiments as well as biological characterization for studying environmental particulate matter.