Alban Sauret is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He did his undergraduate and graduate studies in France, followed by a postdoctoral training at Princeton University. After a few years working as a CNRS researcher in a joint CNRS/Saint-Gobain laboratory near Paris (France), he joined UC Santa Barbara in 2018.
Alban grew up in the south of France and is still trying to (unsuccessfully) hide his French accent. In his spare time, he enjoys trail running in the Santa Barbara area.
Sreeram Rajesh is a fourth-year graduate student in Mechanical Engineering. He completed his undergraduate degree in Manufacturing Engineering from BITS Pilani, India, and worked for a year at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, to model erosion-based polishing mechanisms. He is working on the complex interactions between particles and non-Newtonian fluids.
Sreeram was born and brought up in Kerala, India. He spends his free time reading, watching soccer, cooking, or top roping at the climbing center.
Ram Sudhir Sharma is a third-year graduate student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He did his undergraduate studies (‘19) at Clark University, studying Physics and Philosophy and did his Master’s there in Physics as well. At Clark, he worked in Arshad Kudrolli’s lab working on experiments in granular suspensions and dissolution. In the M&M Flow Lab, he is the specialist of cohesive granular materials.
Ram was born and raised in Pune, India, and has been in boarding schools since he was 10. In his free time, he enjoys reading philosophy and taking long walks. Recently he’s been trying to get better at cooking and chess.
Anant Kumar Yadav is a first-year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at University of Maryland, College Park. He received his B.S. from Tribhuvan University (Pulchowk Campus, Nepal) in 2020 and completed his M.S. at the Indian Institute of Technology Bhilai in 2022. Before joining UMD, he worked as a research analyst in India. At UMD he is working on clogging in various fluidic systems.
Originally from the Mithila region of Nepal, Anant enjoys cooking, movies, running, and swimming in his free time.
Valentin Richard is a visiting MS student from ENS Paris-Saclay, France. He discovered his interest in fluid mechanics through an internship at CEA Paris-Saclay (France), where he worked on turbulence. At UMD, he is exploring how turbulent flows can help reduce clogging in drip irrigation systems.
Originally from the Paris suburbs, Valentin enjoys basketball and running outside of research.
Jules Roth is a second-year graduate student at ESPCI Paris-PSL, France. Before joining the lab at UCSB he worked at AXIMA Nuclear in Lyon, where he oversaw both the technical and financial aspects of a building project, coordinated teams, managed client relations, and ensured everything was delivered on time and within budget. At UCSB, he is working on the erosion of cohesive grains by turbulent flows.
Jules grew up in Lyon, France, where he completed both high school and college. He later moved to Paris to study at ESPCI. Curious and energetic, he enjoys a variety of sports, including football, swimming, gym, climbing, and running, as well as traveling and spending time with friends.
Raaghav Thirumaligai (they/them) is an undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering. They are fascinated with research and are interested in fluid mechanics as a possible focus. Currently, they are working on a system to characterize cohesion in granular materials and have worked on various projects, including the clogging of fiber suspensions.
Raaghav has lived in California, specifically the Bay Area for most of their life. They spend their free time waking up at unreasonable hours to watch Formula 1 and cycle.
Alexis Lin is an undergraduate student in mechanical engineering. She hopes to learn more about fluid mechanics and is currently exploring crater formations on a cohesive granular surface.
Alexis is from the Bay Area and, in her free time, she enjoys cooking and baking new recipes and gathering an array of art skills.
Thanvi Anand is an undergraduate student at UCSB, studying mechanical engineering. She is fascinated in understanding and researching clogging and the fluid dynamics behind this topic.
Thanvi is from the Bay Area, and enjoys pulling out her sketchbook and drawing whenever she gets the chance, while sipping a cup of hot chai.
Marc Noujeim is an undergraduate student studying Mechanical Engineering. He is interested in learning more about fluid mechanics and the dynamics of granular collapses. His current research focuses on experiments quantifying the Janssen effect.
Marc grew up in the Bay Area, and in his free time he enjoys watching sports, going on walks, biking, and traveling.
Kevin Zhao has an undergraduate degree in physics from UCSB. His research interests mainly lie in soft and living matter physics, such as fluid dynamics. He is also exploring more interdisciplinary topics, such as seismology, in Geophysics.
Kevin was born in Illinois but spent most of his life in Southern China. He loves traveling, watching movies, and just a little badminton and tennis.
Thomas Yu is an undergraduate student at UCSB, studying mechanical engineering. He is interested in understanding solid and fluid mechanics, including research on fluidization and drying of wet granular beds. He enjoys theoretical, experimental and computational work.
Thomas is from the Bay Area. Outside of his academic interests, he enjoys playing badminton, eating good food, and whistling.
Camron Hosseini is an undergraduate in echanical engineering at UCSB. His current research involves measuring hydraulic pressure losses across drip emitters.
Camron is from Sacramento and spends most of his free time assisting UCSB’s Formula SAE team, playing the guitar and drums, and spending time outdoors.
Ariana Gomez is an undergraduate student in geophysics at UCSB. Her research focuses on the bulk behavior of cohesive and noncohesive granular materials to better understand their properties and extend this study to large-scale models and environmental phenomena such as landslides, avalanches, and other geologic processes.
Ariana is from Peru and grew up in the Bay Area. She enjoys watching movies, going on road trips, and sleeping late.
Benny Xie is a third-year undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering at UCSB. He is interested in fluid mechanics and is currently studying how mass flow rate of a granular materials depends on the angular velocity of a container.
Benny is from Southern California. In his free time, he enjoys reading science-fiction novels, cooking, and photography.
Alumni at UCSB (since 2018)
Former postdoctoral researchers
Virgile Thiévenaz was a postdoctoral scholar between 2020 and 2022. His PhD work focused on the interaction between capillary flow and freezing. At UCSB, he developed projects in capillary flow of suspensions, and atomization of liquids. He is now a CNRS Researcher at ESPCI, France.
Hadis Matinpour was a postdoctoral scholar from 2019 to 2021. She did her graduate studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her work focused on understanding the initiation mechanism of mudflow generation on hillslopes following a heavy rainstorm after a wildfire.
Former graduate students
Brian Dincau was a graduate student from 2018 to 2022. He obtained his undergraduate degree from UC Davis and his Master's degree from WSU. His research focused on investigating fundamental mechanisms involved in clog formation, a problem that spans many scales and applications. He is now a lab manager at CNSI UCSB.
Haolin He was a BS/MS student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2022. His project focused on designing and building an apparatus to test the swimming efficiency of weaving hydrofoils with different surface roughness, geometry of the foil and swimming environment.
Deok-Hoon Jeong was a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering from 2019 to 2024. He did his undergraduate studies at the University of Rochester. At UCSB, his research was centered on suspension flow in various constrictions, encompassing soft constrictions like liquid-air interfaces to rigid ones such as slits and nozzles, addressing potential clogging issues.
Justin Maddox was an M.S. student who graduated in Winter 2025. Justin came from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and worked in our group on problems involving the flow and transport of fiber suspensions.
Former undergraduate students
Grace Harvill was an undergraduate student in mechanical engineering working in our group during the academic year 2023-2034. Her research involved the drying of powders.
Ariel Nunez Del Prado was an undergraduate student working in our group within the EUREKA program in summer 2024. In our group, he got his first research experience investigating the behavior of granular materials, focusing on the mechanics behind their piling and spreading dynamics.
Sacha Escudier was an undergraduate student working in the M&M Flow Lab on different clogging projects from 2022 to 2024. After that, he went for his PhD at Princeton University.
Mark Cullen was am undergraduate student in mechanical engineering working with us from 2023 to 2024. He studied the role of cohesion on a granular stream and its consequent breakup.
Cole Giusto was an undergraduate student in mechanical engineering interested in many fields of engineering, with an emphasis on fluid dynamics and controls. In the M&M Flow Lab, he worked on droplet pinch-off with viscoelastic fiber suspensions in 2023-2024.
Riley Tinianov was a undergraduate student studying Mechanical Engineering and working with us from Winter 2023 to Winter 2024. He explored capillary flows of particulate suspensions.
Anuj Acharya was a chemical engineering student working in our group from Fall 2023 to Winter 2024. He conducted research to characterize the cohesion due to capillary liquid bridges between particles.
Juwon Park was an undergraduate student at UCSB, studying mechanical engineering. In our group, he worked on exploring the collapse of granular columns as a means to study cliff collapse.
Jackie Park came from the Chemical Engineering department and worked with us in Fall 2023 and Winter 2024. She was interested in exploring how the chemical properties of different materials affect the drying process.
Jackie Li was a 3rd year Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student who worked in our group in 2023 on developing experimental setups setup to study the drying of wet powder using mechanical agitation and air flows.
Yihsuan (Danny) Lai was a 4th year undergraduate student in the Chemical Engineering Department who worked with us in 2023. He has been developing shear cell designs to better measure the properties of cohesive granular material.
Langqi (Michael) Xing was an undergraduate student majoring in Chemical Engineering at UCSB working in our group between 2020 and 2022. He has worked on capillary flow of suspensions and cohesive grains. He is now a PhD student at Northeastern University.
Michael Ka Ho Lee was an undergraduate student at UCSB pursuing a BS in Mechanical Engineering. He worked in the M&M Lab in 2021 focusing on dip-coating with particulate suspension.
Connor Tang was an undergraduate student pursuing Mechanical Engineering at UCSB and working in our group in 2021-2022. His research focused on modeling the fundamental mechanisms involved in clog formation and investigating the relationship between pulsating flow and clogging events.
Mingze Gong was an undergraduate student in our lab from 2019 to 2021. His research focused on the flow behaviors of cohesive-controlled granular material. He has studied the collapse of a granular column and the erosion of a cohesive granular bed by a turbulent jet. After UCSB, he went to UCLA as a MS student.
Kian Ahmadzadeh-Heravi was a second-year undergraduate student at UCSB in the department of Mechanical Engineering, working in our group in 2020-2021. He was interested in the field of Fluid Mechanics and he investigated how cohesive effects modify the penetration depth of low-velocity projectiles.
Freda Lababidi was a fourth-year undergraduate student in Chemical Engineering who worked in the group in 2020-2021. Her research project explored how anisotropic particles are entrained on a film coating a substrate.
Sivar Azadi was an undergraduate student in the Physics department and worked in the M&M Flow Lab from 2019 to 2020. His research focused on the erosion of granular materials by vortices and turbulent flow.
Hanming Li was an undergraduate student in Chemical Engineering and in our group from 2019 to 2020. His interests included exploring the field of fluid mechanics through a lens of chemical engineering. His research focused on the effect of particle size on the rising velocity of air bubbles in suspensions.
Former Visiting PhD Students
Joanne Steiner was a visiting PhD student from FAST (Paris-Saclay University, France) in 2023. Her PhD focused on the erosion of a granular bed by an oscillating disk. At UCSB, she worked on the erosion of cohesive granular beds.
Ben McMillan was a visiting PhD student from Cambridge (UK) between October and December 2022. His PhD experimentally investigated avalanching granular materials. At UCSB, he used photoelasticity to study clogging in 2D silo.
Simon Brient was a visiting PhD student in 2022 from IJLRDA (Sorbonne Université, Paris, France) in 2022. His PhD consisted in studying the effect of temperatures on flowing water films. At UCSB, he worked on the impact of water drops on water film.
Wladimir Sarlin was a visiting PhD student from FAST (Paris-Saclay University, France) in 2022. His PhD focused on impulse waves triggered by granular collapse in water. At UCSB, he worked on the dynamics of cohesive granular materials.
Adrien Gans was a visiting PhD student from IUSTI (Marseille, France) in 2019. His PhD work focused on understanding the flowability of powders and cohesive grains. At UCSB, he worked on the collapse of cohesive grains.
Former Visiting MS and BS Students
Théophile Meiller was a visiting student from ESPCI Paris—PSL engineering school in France in 2024. In the M&M Flow Lab, he has been working on the impact of drops of complex fluids on granular materials.
Katy Tegou was a second-year graduate student at ESPCI Paris-PSL in France visiting our group in 2024. Previously, she worked at NTT Phi Lab in Sunnyvale and at UCSB, she has been working on the erosion of cohesive grains by turbulent flows.
Guillaume Bonnesson was a visiting MS student from ESPCI Paris-PSL in France. At UCSB, he worked on flow instabilities in millifluidic channels.
Vincent Poitier was a visiting student from Sorbonne Universite, Paris. He was co-advised with Frederic Gibou in 2024 to work on the simulation of precipitation and dissolution in porous media.
Matthis Vaudable was a student in the Engineering School at CentraleSupélec Paris-Saclay, France and a visitor in our group in 2023. He previously studied tsunamis generated by 3D granular collapse at the FAST Laboratory in Orsay, France. At UCSB, he worked on the behaviors of cohesive granular collapse on an inclined plane.
Rémi Thomas was a MS Physics student at ENS Lyon. He visited our group in 2023 where he worked on suspension flows in millifluidic systems.
Raphaël Bouguemari was a MS student from ENS Paris-Saclay, France, and an intern in our group in 2023. He has worked on the rheology and flow of suspension and mud.
Nathan Vani was a visiting student during the academic year 2021-2022 coming from ENS Paris-Saclay. At UCSB, he focused on the clogging of suspensions in confined systems. He is now a PhD student at the PMMH Lab at ESPCI (France).
Sebastien Kuchly was a visiting MS student from ESPCI Paris (France) in 2022. In our group, he studied the transport and clogging of suspensions of fibers.
Baptiste Jouron was a visiting student from Ecole Polytechnique (France) in 2022. At UCSB, he has been co-advised with F. Gibou and worked on reactive flows in porous media.
Jules Tampier was a visiting MS student in 2022 from Institut de Physique du Globe and ENS de Lyon (France) At UCSB he investigated the erosion of a granular bed by impacting droplets.
Sumukh Peddada was a visiting undergraduate from BITS Pilani, India (Mechanical Engineering) in 2021. He focused on bubble dynamics in viscoelastic fluids. After UCSB he enrolled in a MS at University of Washington.
Anezka Kvasnickova was a visiting student in 2020 from ESPCI Paris (France). She obtained her undergraduate degree from University of Prague. At UCSB she worked on the numerical simulation of thin films flows.
Guillaume Grosjean was a (remote) visiting student in 2020. He was a student in at Polytech Montpellier (France). At UCSB, his research focused on numerical modeling of the flow through porous aggregate.
Anthony Rey-Pommier was a visiting MS student from ENS Paris0-Saclay in 2019. He focused on physical confinement during the flow of porous spheres. After UCSB, he pursued his studies in environmental economics.
Jean-Baptiste Boutin was a visiting MS student from ESPCI (France) in 2019. He worked on the deposition of a suspension on the wall of a capillary tube. After UCSB, he went to the Mines Paristech to get an MS and Executive Engineering degree.
Former Visiting High-School Students
Kayley Xu was a high school student visiting researcher with the Research Mentorship Program at UCSB in summer 2024 coming from The Bishop's School (San Diego, CA). She investigated the extrusion dynamics of fibers for liquid printing applications.
Hailey Van was a high school student from Portola High School (Irvine, CA) and a visiting student with the Research Mentorship Program at UCSB in summer 2023. She explored the effects of biopolymers and cohesive forces on cliff collapse.
Jacob Winefeld was a senior at Palo Alto High School and a visiting researcher with the Research Mentorship Program at UCSB in summer 2023. He investigated the clogging transition of cohesive granular flows through a silo.
Jonathan Xue was a high school student and was a visiting researcher with the UCSB Research Mentorship Program in summer 2023. His research at UCSB was related to the flow and clogging of silos.
Kate Jang was a junior at Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences and part of the RMP at UCSB in summer 2022. In our group, she worked on understanding the influence of biopolymers on microplastic settling.
Steven Amanat was a high school student and a visiting student with the UCSB Research Mentorship Program. In our group, he examined the interactions between turbulent air jets and cohesive grains.
Previous Alumni at CNRS (France, 2014-2018)
Postdoctoral Researchers
Pascal Raux was a postdoctoral researcher (2017-2019) who focused on the spreading and atomization of films of suspensions. He is now a Research and Development Engineer in France.
Veronica Gavrilov was a postdoctoral researcher (2016-2017) at Saint-Gobain Recherche and SIMM Laboratory at ESPCI (France) in collaboration with Jeremie Teisseire (SGR), Etienne Barthel (SIMM) and Emilie Verneuil (SIMM). Her work focused on the development of slippery liquid-infused surfaces for anti-icing applications in polar environments.
Graduate Students
Quentin Magdelaine was a Ph.D. student (2016-2019) co-advised with Arnaud Antkowiak (Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Sorbonne University, France). He investigated the dynamics of heterogeneous liquid films and was funded by Saint-Gobain Recherche. He is now a Research Engineer at Saint-Gobain Recherche.
Guillaume Saingier was a PhD student (2015-2018) co-advised with Pierre Jop (Surface du Verre et Interfaces, France). His work was devoted to investigating the mechanisms and dynamics of interactions between grains and liquid and, particularly, to focus on the transition from dry to wet granular media. After his Ph.D., he became a Research Engineer at Saint-Gobain Recherche in France.
Aymeric Merceron was a PhD student (2013-2016) co-advised with Pierre Jop (Surface du Verre et Interfaces, France). He studied the behavior of reactive granular materials and, in particular, how reactive grains affect the transformation and structure of a granular packing. He then became a Research Engineer at Saint-Gobain Recherche.
Manon-Robbe Saule was a Ph.D. student (2016-2019) at FAST laboratory (Orsay, France) co-advised with Philippe Gondret, Cyprien Morize, and Yann Bertho. She investigated the generation of impulse waves following a granular collapse into water.
Florent Lachaussee was a Ph.D. student (2015-2018) at FAST laboratory (Orsay, France) co-advised with Philippe Gondret, Yann Bertho, and Cyprien Morize. His Ph.D. work characterized the erosion process in the vicinity of an immersed structure.
Master Students
Adrien Gans was a MS student from Paris-Saclay University in 2018. He focused on the dip coating and the drainage of suspensions.
Olivier Rembliere was a MS student from Paris-Saclay University in 2018, co-advised with Emilie Dressaire. He performed experiments to describe the flow of floating particles.
Guillaume Renard was an MS student from Paris-Saclay University in 2017, co-advised with Philippe Gondret and Cyprien Morize (FAST Laboratory, France). He considered the erosion of a granular bed by the impulse motion of a disc experimentally.
Marine Aulnette was an MS student from Paris-Saclay University in 2017, co-advised with Philippe Gondret and Cyprien Morize (FAST Laboratory, France). She worked on the erosion induced by the translation of a solid structure near a granular bed.
Benedicte Colnet was a MS student from Ecole Polytechnique in 2017, co-advised with Emilie Dressaire (NYU, US). She worked on the dip coating of particulate suspension, both at Saint-Gobain Recherche (France) and NYU (US).
Megane Muschi was an MS student from Chimie Paris in 2016, co-advised with Jeremie Teisseire (SVI, France) and Barbara Brudieu (SGR, France). She characterized the effects of the coating thickness on drop impact on SLIPS surfaces.
Anthony Troger was a MS student from ENS Lyon in 2016, co-advised with Pierre Jop (SVI, France). He studied the expansion and fragmentation of particle-laden liquid sheets experimentally.
Sylvain Chateau was an MS student from Polytech Marseille (France), co-advised with Philippe Gondret, Yann Bertho and Cyprien Morize at FAST Laboratory (France) in 2015. He worked on the erosion process in the vicinity of an immersed cylinder.
Guillaume Quibeuf was an MS student from Paris XI University in 2015, co-advised with Philippe Gondret and Cyprien Morize at FAST Laboratory (France). He characterized the erosion induced by the oscillation of a disc.
Houda Maimouni was a MS student from ENPC in 2015, co-advised with Pierre Jop (SVI, France). She worked on the accretion of flowing dry grains on wet aggregates.
Alice Boursier was a MS student from ESPCI in 2015, co-advised with Pierre Jop (SVI, France). She worked on the cohesion of bidisperse wet granular materials.