PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The National Science Foundation has awarded Daniel Harris, an assistant professor of engineering at Brown University, a Faculty Early Career Development grant.
The CAREER program is the federal agency’s most prestigious honor in support of early-career faculty and will provide Harris with $570,000 over a five-year period. The aim is to support early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.
At Brown’s School of Engineering, Harris leads a research team that explores fluid mechanics and soft matter using experimental and mathematical modeling techniques. The team’s work has ranged from developing new tools to help researchers better understand the movements of microorganisms; to helping to directly measure the forces that cause small objects to cluster together on the surface of a liquid, a phenomenon known as the “Cheerios effect”; to providing insights on how partially submerged objects experience drag; to investigating forces during water entry.
“Our lab focuses on fluid mechanics with specific attention to interfacial phenomena,” Harris said. “Our experimental work is primarily centered around custom tabletop experiments, so we do a lot of design and prototyping whenever we work to address a new research question. As a very hands-on and visual person, I am drawn to these types of experiments that can be easily handled and visualized with still and high-speed photography.”
