 Skipper |
Ph.D. student Anna Skipper has won a fellowship to spend three months this fall working on research at the University of Cambridge in England.
As one of just four David Crighton Fellows for 2017, Skipper will conduct experiments in Cambridge’s G.K. Batchelor Laboratory for a project that focuses on the spray that develops behind a spinning disk, like a bike tire, when it splashes through water.
“All vehicles — trucks, cars, and bicycles — cause splash and spray when the tires roll over sufficiently wetted surfaces,” Skipper said. “Despite the commonplace nature of this fluid mechanics problem, there are relatively few studies that seek to fundamentally understand such a flow.”
Skipper worked last summer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to conduct preliminary experiments for the project. The Cambridge lab has equipment that will let her run bigger and faster experiments, she said.
Skipper will work with Megan Davies-Wykes, a post-doctoral researcher in Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. They worked together on the project at Woods Hole.
Crighton Fellows work in applied mathematics in fluid mechanics, acoustics, or waves and vibrations. They can be Cambridge students who want to do research elsewhere or outside students who, like Skipper, want to work at Cambridge for two to three months.