Skip to main content

Staff Profile

Dr Niraj Prasad

Research Associate

  • Email: niraj.prasad@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: Office D.11A
    School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics
    Herschel Building
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
    UK
Background

Hello, I am a postdoctoral research associate at Newcastle University. Before that, I completed my PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. As an Experimental Fluid Dynamist, I explore patterns in the fluid motion ranging across broad length scales from internal solitary waves in oceans to microfluidic particles in biomedical systems. I also explore the computational methods to capture the dynamics of complex flows that theory alone cannot predict. I like hiking, camping, and motorcycle rides in the Himalayas.

Research

My work as a postdoctoral research associate primarily involves experimental and computational investigation of mode-2 internal solitary waves (ISWs). So far, limited mathematical investigations have been made of multi-humped mode-2 waves. Thus I started performing experimental and numerical studies to investigate the physical generation of these exotic waves. For this, I developed expertise in generating internal solitary waves within a wave flume filled with triple stratified layers of water. I also developed a numerical model to mimic the experimental setup and generated the multi- humped waves using an open source solver, Spectral Parallel Incompressible Navier-Stokes solver (SPINS) .


During my Ph.D., much of my research involved designing an experimental and multiphase computational model for deciphering flow dynamics and deformation of drug carriers and cancer cells flowing through microchannels of minimum width 7 μm. Another significant portion of my research included fabricating constricted microchannels that mimic the confinement of blood capillary networks. In my research, I learned to operate sophisticated instruments like Mask Writer for fabricating microfluidic patterns on the silicon wafer, and conductivity probes for measuring the stratification of three-layer fluid in wave flume. In doing so, I got trained in handling equipment inside cleanroom. Additionally, I synthesized and characterized drug carriers such as hydrogels and nanovesicles for my experimental work and did high-speed visualization of the flow of these carriers via constricted microchannel. While performing experiments, I was trained in handling high-speed cameras, and gained elementary proficiency in instruments like Dynamic Light Scattering, Zetasizer, Flow Cytometry, and FESEM. My research also involved creating a two-phase viscoelastic drop model for these cells and carriers. The multiphase viscoelastic drop model was created to understand these drug carriers’ elastic and shear-thinning behavior, which is somewhat difficult to discern through experiments. I used a finite volume-based open-source solver Basilisk to simulate the two-phase Newtonian viscoelastic drop-matrix system. Furthermore, I was trained in open-source platforms like Matplotlib (Python), Image J and commercial software like Tecplot, Matlab for post-processing of the results obtained from experimental and numerical investigations. In addition, I helped expand my lab’s experimental capabilities to create PDMS-based microchannels. Furthermore, I also trained my colleagues to operate KLOE DILASE 250 Mask Writer for fabricating microchannel patterns on silicon wafers.

Teaching
  • Teaching Assistant for the course Computational Fluid Dynamics for Incompressible Flows and Fundamentals of Convective Heat Transfer by National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), IIT Guwahati (2020 - 2024)
  • Teaching Assistant for the course Fundamentals of Conduction and Radiation by National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), IIT Guwahati (July - October, 2019 & 2022)
  • Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University Uttar Pradesh, India (2017-2018)
Publications