Lab News

Eunsu Hwang, an exchange student from Gyeongsang National University, completed his study at UNLV after working on tip-leakage cavitation in hydrofoils.

Isabella Stanley defended her MS thesis, “An Open-Source Workflow for Fontan Surgical Planning.”

In partnership with Nikkiso Cryo Inc., the lab is building a turbomachinery test facility to study cavitation in LNG pump inducers.

Huang Chen received UNLV’s Top Tier Doctoral Graduate Research Assistantship for “Enhancing LVAD Hemocompatibility Using Novel Flow Control Methods.”

Congratulations to Isabella Stanley on her selection for UNLV’s first cohort of Sloan Scholars, supporting doctoral success through mentorship, professional development, financial support, and community building.

We are seeking motivated PhD/MS students to join our lab in Spring/Fall 2025! Full financial support is available. You will receive hands on training, perform exciting fluid mechanics research in biomedical or/and aerospace engineering, and present your work at national conferences.

Our proposal for "Mechanically Assisted Establishment of Biventricular Physiology for Failing Fontan Circulation" has been recommended for funding. We will develop a novel mechanical circulatory device using aerospace-inspired technology to support failing Fontan patients with high flow rates and low pressure rises.

We are excited to announce our proposal, "Nexus of Neutronics-Thermal Fluid Analysis for Optimizing Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Propulsion," has been selected for funding! As the Principal Investigator, Dr. Huang Chen will work with Dr. Yi-Tung Chen to conduct a preliminary optimization study of Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (CNTP) engines.

Our paper titled "Effects of Implantation Height on the Performance of a Redo Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement Using a Balloon-Expandable Valve" has been accepted for publication in the JTCVS Open! This groundbreaking study examines how implantation height affects valve performance in TAVR-in-TAVR procedures, providing crucial insights for clinicians as these procedures become more common. The research team includes Huang Chen, Milad Samaee, Pradeep Yadav, Vinod Thourani, and Lakshmi Dasi.

Our paper titled "An In-Vitro Study of the Flow past a Transcatheter Aortic Valve Using Time-Resolved 3D Particle Tracking" has been accepted for publication in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering! It is our first paper using 3D particle tracking to study the flow structures, particle residence time, and pressure downstream of a heart valve. The method will lead to more high-impact in vitro studies in the future. Stay tuned!

I'm excited to announce that I'll be starting a new role as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas this fall. I'll be diving into using advanced fluid measurement and simulation techniques to study complex flows associated with aerospace and biomedical applications. A big thanks to everyone who's been there with support and encouragement along the way.

Our team has been awarded a $7.8M DoD grant to develop a novel LVAD with wireless power transfer and antithrombotic coating. As Co-Investigator, Dr. Huang Chen will collaborate with Georgia Tech, NC State, Rice University, and Texas Heart Institute.

I am excited to present our work at the 75th APS DFD annual meeting in Indianapolis! We have demonstrated how to quantify particle residence time and blood damage in an intracranial aneurysm using 3D time-resolved particle tracking. We have also looked at the effects of inflow pulsatility on the blood residence time in the aneurysm. This work can help evaluate the efficacy of the treatment for brain aneurysms using flow diversion stents. It opens the possibility to directly quantify blood damage in other medical devices using 3D flow measurement techniques.