Hanliang (Han) Guo

Welcome

I am an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Ohio Wesleyan University. I got my Ph.D. from the University of Southern California (USC) under the supervision of Professor Eva Kanso. I completed my postdoc training at the University of Michigan, mentored by Professor Shravan Veerapaneni.

I am broadly interested in the fields of biological fluid mechanics and active matter. Specifically, I develop reduced-order models and fast numerical algorithms for low Reynolds number fluid problems related to biology and human health. Students interested in conducting research in biomedical flows, machine learning, and/or applied math in general are highly encouraged to contact me.

You are welcome to check out my CV, google scholar, and research gate profiles.

News

Apr 2025: I gave a talk at the College of Wooster's Math department, titled "What math taught me about driving?"
Mar 2025: Our paper on Stentor is published online in Nature Physics!
Feb 2025: I gave an i^3 talk at Ohio Wesleyan's Connection Conference, titled "How math can make you a better driver".
Jan 2025: I participated in JMM 2025 in Seattle, Washington.
Jul 2024: I received the AMS-Simons PUI grant.
Mar 2024: I am visiting the biofluid group at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. Hard to say which is the best: food, music, or math!
Feb 2024: I visited the Math department of Kenyon College and gave a talk titled "Mathematical modeling of creeping stuff"!
Jan 2024: The paper "Hydrodynamic bound states of rotating micro-cylinders in a confining geometry" is published in Physical Review Fluids! Woohoo!

Olds (click to expand)

Jul 2023: We submitted the paper "Hydrodynamic bound states of rotating micro-cylinders in a confining geometry". Stay tuned! Check out our preprint here: arXiv.
Jan 2023: We submitted the paper "Cooperative hydrodynamics accompany multicellular-like colonial organization in the unicellular ciliate Stentor". Stay tuned! Check out our preprint here: bioRxiv.
Nov 2022: I presented at this year's APS DFD annual meeting and gave a talk titled "Periodic trajectories of rotating micro-cylinders in a confining geometry". So happy to see lots of friends at the conference!
Nov 2022: I visited the Math department of Oberlin College and gave a talk titled "Mathematical modeling of creeping biological fluids" -- it was a lot of fun!
Sep 2022: The paper "Spontaneous phase coordination and fluid pumping in model ciliary carpets" is accepted by PNAS! Check out our preprint here: arXiv.
Jul 2022: The paper "Using artificial neural networks to classify optimal microswimmers based on their shapes" is accepted to SIAM undergraduate research online (SIURO). Big congrats to Jenny, Xinyue, Nicole, and Wanting - so proud! DOI: 10.1137/22S1479816
Jul 2022: I gave a talk at the 40th Chinese Academic Saloon for Young Fluid Dynamicists (delivered remotely).
Jun 2022: I joined the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Ohio Wesleyan University as an Assistant Professor.
Apr 2022: I gave a talk at the PDE & Applied Math Seminar at UC Riverside.
Aug 2021: Our paper Optimal ciliary locomotion of axisymmetric microswimmers is accepted to the Journal of Fluid Mechanics!
Jul 2021: The mini-symposium "Numerical Methods for Incompressible Fluid Systems" at AN21 will meet on Monday, July 19 2021. It is a two-part series: MS10 and MS32. Hope to see you there!
Jun 2021: I published a Matlab app, Xlip, that solves the optimal axisymmetric slip profile of any user-defined shape in seconds! Download now from Mathworks File Exchange!
Mar 2021: We submitted our paper Optimal ciliary locomotion of axisymmetric microswimmers.
Feb 2021: I presented my research Modeling ciliary flow in complex geometries at Applied Math Seminar at the Central Michigan University.

Focused Research Areas

Ciliary fluid dynamics

Optimization of active particles

Publications

Cooperative hydrodynamics accompany multicellular-like colonial organization in the unicellular ciliated Stentor. Shashank Shekhar*, Hanliang Guo*, Sean P. Colin, Wallace Marshall, Eva Kanso, John H. Costello. Nature Physics (2025). (*: equal contribution) [Publisher][link to paper]
Shape optimization of slip-driven axisymmetric microswimmers, Ruowen Liu, Hai Zhu, Hanliang Guo, Marc Bonnet, Shravan Veerapaneni. SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing (2024). [arXiv] [Publisher]
Hydrodynamic bound states of rotating micro-cylinders in a confining geometry. Hanliang Guo*, Yi Man, Hai Zhu. Physical Review Fluids (2024). [arXiv] [Publisher] (*: corresponding author)
Spontaneous phase coordination and fluid pumping in model ciliary carpets. Anup Kanale, Feng Ling, Hanliang Guo, Sebastian Furthauer, Eva Kanso. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022) [arXiv] [Publisher]
Optimal ciliary locomotion of axisymmetric microswimmers. Hanliang Guo*, Hai Zhu, Ruowen Liu, Marc Bonnet, Shravan Veerapaneni. Journal of Fluid Mechanics (2021). [arXiv] [Publisher] (open access) (*: corresponding author)
Intracellular coupling modulates biflagellar synchrony. Hanliang Guo, Yi Man, Kirsty Wan, Eva Kanso. Journal of the Royal Society Interface (2021). [arXiv][Publisher]
Optimal slip velocities of micro-swimmers with arbitrary axisymmetric shapes. Hanliang Guo, Hai Zhu, Ruowen Liu, Marc Bonnet, Shravan Veerapaneni. Journal of Fluid Mechanics (2021). [arXiv][Publisher] (open access)
Simulating cilia-driven mixing and transport in complex geometries. Hanliang Guo, Hai Zhu, Shravan Veerapaneni. Physical Review Fluids (2020). [arXiv][Publisher]
Instability-driven Oscillations of Elastic Microfilaments. Feng Ling, Hanliang Guo, Eva Kanso. Journal of The Royal Society Interface (2018). [arXiv][Publisher]
Bistablility in the synchronization of actuated microfilaments. Hanliang Guo, Lisa Fauci, Michael Shelley, Eva Kanso. Journal of Fluid Mechanics (2018). [arXiv][Publisher]
Motile cilia create fluid-mechanical microhabitats for the active recruitment of the host microbiome. Janna Nawroth*, Hanliang Guo*, Eric Koch, Elizabeth A. Heath-Heckman, John C. Hermanson, Edward Ruby, John Dabiri, Eva Kanso, Margaret McFall-Ngai. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). (*: equal contribution) [Publisher]
A computational study of mucociliary transport in healthy and diseased environments. Hanliang Guo, Eva Kanso. European Journal of Computational Mechanics (2017). [arXiv][Publisher]
Evaluating efficiency and robustness in cilia design. Hanliang Guo, Eva Kanso. Physical Review E (2016). [arXiv][Publisher]
Cilia beating patterns are not hydrodynamically optimal. Hanliang Guo, Janna Nawroth, Yang Ding, Eva Kanso. Physics of Fluids (2014). [arXiv][Publisher]
Inferring the Temporal Order of Cancer Gene Mutations in Individual Tumor Samples. Jun Guo, Hanliang Guo, Zhanyi Wang. PLOS ONE (2014). [Publisher]
An Activation Force-based Affinity Measure for Analyzing Complex Networks. Jun Guo, Hanliang Guo, Zhanyi Wang. Scientific Reports (2011). [Publisher]

Software

Traffic simulator

This open source package adopts a car-following model to simulate traffic flow in a periodic domain (single lane or multiple lanes). The details of the algorithm are in our paper "A car-following framework for traffic instability and lane changes". Package developed by Nick Mankowski ('25)

p12_aggressive.mov

Xlip

This Matlab App solves the optimal slip profile of axisymmetric microswimmers with user-defined shape. Such a slip profile minimizes the power loss of the active microswimmer swimming at unit speed. The algorithm is documented in the paper "Optimal slip velocities of micro-swimmers with arbitrary axisymmetric shapes" (https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2020.969).

Matlab users: The app can be directly installed into your Matlab App library. Download the installation file at Mathworks File Exchange.

No Matlab, no sweat: The app can be downloaded and installed as a stand-alone app. The installation file will download the Matlab runtime automatically. [stand-alone apps]

Teaching

Ohio Wesleyan University (2022 - )

MATH 110 Calculus I

MATH 111 Calculus II

MATH 210 Multivariable Calculus

MATH 270 Linear Algebra

MATH 280 Differential Equations

MATH 385 Numerical Methods

CS 110 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming

CS 300.1 Data Mining and Machine Learning

CS 390 Special Topics (Computer Graphics)

Students: read here to see what advice is given by the students who have taken these classes!

University of Michigan (2018 - 2022)

MATH 115 Calculus I

MATH 156 Applied Honors Calculus II

MATH 285 Honors Multivariable & Vector Calculus

MATH 371 Numerical Methods

University of Southern California (Before 2018)

AME 599 Mechanics of Locomotion in Air, Water, and on Land (Guest lecturer) (notes)

AME 525 Engineering Analysis (Teaching Assistant)

Research Mentorships

I am very fortunate to have mentored many talented undergraduate and graduate students. Contact me if you are interested in conducting research in applied math and/or biological flows.

My most recent mentees are Hassan Mustaq ('25) and Nick Mankowski ('25) who worked on math modeling of traffic jams via the Summer Science Research Programs (SSRP). Using a first-order microscopic model, we explored the effects of individual drivers' behaviors on the overall traffic flows including the stability of traffic flow and lane changing. Stay tuned for more!

From Fall 2022 to Spring 2023, I mentored Kaito Iwasaki ('23) on a research project concerning the dynamics of rotating micro-cylinders inside confining geometry. We investigated the complex dynamics of cylinders when subjected to different torques. Kaito joined the University of Michigan as a PhD student after graduation.

In Winter 2022, I co-mentored an undergraduate research team (Akash Narayanan, Xiuru Ruan, and Zhuoyu Zhu) together with Yabin Zhang. The team investigated different numerical interpolation schemes.

In Fall 2021, I mentored a group of four undergraduate students (Jenny Jin, Xinyue Qie, Nicole Surgent, and Wanting Huang). They worked on leveraging machine learning techniques to classify microswimmer types (pusher, puller, neutral). The results are published by SIURO.

In Winter 2021, a group of three undergraduate students at Michigan (Lisbon Wu, Rahmy Salman, and Bohan Xu) worked on the research project "Flow in Confined Geometry". They published their results (and codes) on this website. The Matlab App is available in Matlab Central. Check it out!