Welcome to the FAST Lab at Ole Miss
The Fundamentals and Applied Science of Turbulence (FAST) Lab is a fluid dynamics research group at the University of Mississippi. We aim to explore and understand turbulence, including flow separation, modulations by surface structures, multiphase and interface physics, scalar transport, etc.
We are looking for passionate, qualified new PhD students, Master's students, and Undergraduate students to join the team!
Recent Highlights
[Research] Dec. 2025, Mr. Benjamin Cooper's collaborative work with experimentalists at IIT has been published on Biomimetics. First journal published, more to come. Congrats Ben!
[Student] Dec. 2025, Congratulations to my colleague and student, Ms. Grace Bridge, on being awarded her MSc degree—recognizing her excellent research into separating flows over “weird” bumps!
[Research Nov. 2025, FAST members, Benjamin Cooper, John Cooper, and Benjamin Savino presented their research at the APS DFD meeting at Houston. Very proud of their work and their presentation!
[Funding] Nov. 2025, our lab is awarded the ME Department AI Seed Award. We will make AI-integrated engineering tangible.
[Research] Nov. 2025, Wu is awarded the Rising Star at the ASME IMECE 2025 conference.
[Student] June. 2025, PhD Candidate Mr. Benjamin Savino is awarded the DoE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Fellowship. He will spend six months at the National Laboratory of the Rockies, working with Dr. Kevin Griffin. Congrats Ben!
[Student] April. 2025, our junior undergraduate researcher, Mr. John Griffith, won the Stamps Impact Prize for his study on wingless UAVs. The prize is a competitive award program at UM that supports undergraduate-initiated, faculty-mentored research and creative achievement projects. Congrats Jack!
[Funding] Dec. 2024. Dr. Wu got the NSF CAREER Award. We will study pulsating flow over rough surfaces! No more simplification such as `assume the object is traveling at a constant speed of...'!
[Funding] Dec. 2024. We received a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) to expand our study on the potential of shark denticles in drag reduction. The three-year project will integrate numerical simulations at UM and experiments at Illinois Tech. Let's make airplanes fly shark fast!
[Student] Nov. 2024, our junior undergraduate researcher, Mr. Prithwy Biswas, won the Stamps Impact Prize for his study on Schlieren imaging. Mr. John Griffith also participated in this research this semester. Congrats Prithwy and Jack!
[Research] Nov. 2024, TWO(!) papers by PhD student Ben Savino on rotating turbulence and flow over shark denticles have been published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM). Congrats Ben!
[Outreach] Nov. 2024, we had a great morning sharing our wind tunnel with parents and kids at the "Art of Aerodynamics" event at the UM Museum.
[Student] Jul. 2024, Mr. John Miles defended his MSc thesis. Congratulations John!
[Outreach] May 2024, an "Art of Fluids" exhibition regarding shark dermal denticles is set up via a collaboration with the UM Museum!
[Outreach] Apr. 2024, our lab participated in Mississippi Day 2024 with our wind tunnel and an Oobleck pool!
[Research] Jun-Aug 2023, Ben Savino and Dr. Wu visited CTR at Stanford to investigate shark denticles in fluid flows. https://engineering.olemiss.edu/summer-research-at-stanford/
[Student] Jun-Aug 2023, John Miles worked as a co-op in Dayton, Ohio.
[Funding] Dec 2022. We received a grant to set up an educational wind tunnel at UM. Thanks for your support, Mississippi Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Surveyors.
[Student] No 2022. John Miles and Ben Savino's work was presented at the APS DFD meeting in Indianapolis.
[Funding] June-Aug. 2022. Dr. Wu visited the Center for Turbulence Research at Stanford to study bristling shark dermal denticles. Thanks for the support of NSF EPSCoR Track-4 Fellowship! https://nowandever.olemiss.edu/stories/engineers-research-charting-new-waters-in-fluid-studies/
[Student] Apr. 2022, Mr. Ben Savino won the prestigious NSF GRFP Fellowship. Congratulations Ben! https://engineering.olemiss.edu/ben-savino-nsf-fellowship/
[Funding] Jan. 2021, we received a grant from NSF CBET to investigate drag-reducing surface structures.
We are grateful for funding from the University of Mississippi, Mississippi Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Surveyors, National Science Fundation (NSF-CBET, OIA), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).
