Cari Dutcher

Benjamin Mayhugh Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
and McKnight Land-Grant Professor
Graduate Faculty Member, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

Office: ME 111
Phone: 612-624-0428
Email: cdutcher@umn.edu

NSF-AGS Postdoc, Air Quality Research Center, University of California, Davis, 2009-2013
Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 2009
B.S., Chemical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, 2004

Research

Complex fluids are fluidic mixtures featuring multiple phases and mesoscopic length scales, and include atmospheric aerosols, polymeric solutions and colloidal suspensions. An exciting feature of many complex fluids is their unusual response to external stimulus, such as thermal, chemical, mechanical, electrical or inertial forcing. The intricate dynamics observed in complex fluids, if well understood, can be engineered for numerous applications. My research interests are in fundamental studies of the dynamics, bifurcations and patterning of complex fluids and multiphase flows, with a specific focus on environmental remediation. Using laboratory experimental techniques, phenomenological scaling, and analytic mathematical modeling, our group explores such areas as the thermodynamics of electrolyte-containing atmospheric aerosols, fluid dynamics and rheology of polymeric solutions, and electrohydrodynamics of colloidal suspensions.

Laboratory

Complex Fluids and Multiphase Flows (CFMF)

Publications