The Graduate Fellowships and Awards Committee selected Xinyu Lu, and one other student, to receive a medallion for the Spring 2016 semester. The medallions were presented during the May 5th hooding ceremony at the Brooks Center.
Xinyu’s doctoral research was to develop a fundamental understanding of particle transport phenomena in non-Newtonian fluids (e.g., polymer solutions and bio-fluids such as blood, saliva, and DNA solution) through microchannels, which is an emerging and important research area in the microfluidics community. His studies of particle motions in electric field and pressure-driven non-Newtonian flows have made significant contributions to the field. He has reported the first experimental study of particle electrophoresis in viscoelastic fluids showing an oscillatory particle motion in the constriction region. He has achieved micro-particle separations based on size and shape by the flow-induced elasto-inertial lift in pressure-driven flow. His research interests also include electrokinetic wall-lift force, dielectrophoresis, and magnetophoresis, etc. Fifteen peer-reviewed journals have been published and four others are under preparation.
