Current Members

Dr. Huang Chen is an Assistant Professor at UNLV specializing in experimental and computational fluid dynamics. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and completed his postdoctoral training at Georgia Tech/Emory University. His research focuses on blood flow in medical devices, cavitation in turbomachinery, and advanced flow measurement techniques. He also develops data-driven models for biomedical and aerospace applications. Outside the lab, he enjoys hiking, stargazing, fishing, reading, and building electronic prototypes for fun.

Siquan works on the hemodynamics of miniature blood pumps. He uses optical measurements and computational fluid dynamics simulations to study the complex flow in ventricular assist devices to improve hemocompatibility.

Zhongqiyu works on fundamental problems in turbulence and multiphase flow, with an emphasis on the interaction between finite-size particles and turbulence.

Isabella works on advanced virtual surgical planning for patients with congenital heart disease and on Fontan assist devices to restore normal circulation. She defended her MS thesis, “An Open-Source Workflow for Fontan Surgical Planning,” in May 2026 and was selected for the first cohort of Sloan Scholars at UNLV.

Daniel’s work focuses on turbomachinery and cavitation.

David works on the design and construction of the UNLV–Nikkiso test facility.

Jackson works on the simulation and experiments of centrifugal nuclear thermal propulsion.

Jerome is an undergraduate research student in FIL and is currently an intern at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Exchange student from Korea Aerospace University.

Daniel Gadaleta is a B.S. Mechanical Engineering student. He is working with Thomas Miller and Dong Song in performing neutronics simulations for an optimization research study on the centrifugal nuclear thermal rocket (CNTR) concept.

Dong is an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering student at UNLV, originally from South Korea. He is currently assisting Daniel Gadelata in analyzing neutron flux distribution using OpenMC, with the goal of improving the energy efficiency of the CNTP core design. Outside of academics and research, he enjoys playing baseball in his free time.

Miguel is an undergraduate student majoring in Mechanical Engineering at UNLV. He is currently working on the controls and data acquisition system for a flow loop designed to test blood pumps.

Coronado High School.

Coronado High School.