Andrea Prosperetti wins 2014 EUROMECH Fluid Mechanics Prize

Johns Hopkins University Professor Andrea Prosperetti, an authority in the area of fluid dynamics and underwater acoustics, has been awarded the 2014 EUROMECH Fluid Mechanics Prize by the Council of the European Mechanics Society.

Prosperetti, the Charles A. Miller Jr. Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the university's Whiting School of Engineering, received the award "in recognition of his profound, seminal contributions to fluid dynamics and acoustics in general and to bubble dynamics and rain noise in particular," according to a statement by the society. The group also cited his development of novel numerical techniques and his world leadership in those fields along with his brilliance in their applications to engineering.

Louis Whitcomb, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, praised the council's selection of his faculty member for the award.

"Andrea Prosperetti is a worldwide leader in research in acoustics and multiphase fluid dynamics who brings great distinction to Johns Hopkins," Whitcomb said. "It is a great privilege and an honor to have him as a colleague."

Prosperetti is an internationally respected expert in the mechanics of fluids. His work focuses mainly on bubble dynamics, fluid-particle flows, computational fluid dynamics and acoustics. He will formally receive his prize at the European Fluid Mechanics Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in September.

In addition to his work at Johns Hopkins, Prosperetti has a part-time faculty appointment as the Berkhoff Professor of Applied Physics in the Department of Applied Sciences of the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

Prosperetti is author or co-author of over 200 papers in refereed journals. He is author of the book Advanced Mathematics for Applications and is co-author of two other books. He was elected into the National Academy of Engineering in 2012.

Prosperetti received a doctorate in engineering science from the California Institute of Technology in 1974 and taught at the University of Milan, Italy before joining Johns Hopkins in 1985. He is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Multiphase Flow. He also has served on the editorial board of the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics and as editor for the Letters section of The Physics of Fluid.

The European Mechanics Society is an international non-governmental non-profit scientific organization that engages in activities intended to promote the development of mechanics as a branch of science and engineering in Europe.