about
I am a postdoc in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington working with Michelle DiBenedetto. I’m currently investigating vertical mixing of microplastic particles by wind-driven turbulence in the ocean surface boundary layer through laboratory experiments. I received my PhD from the University of Minnesota, where I worked with Filippo Coletti in the Laboratories for Turbulent and Complex Flows and the St. Anthony Falls Lab to explore fluid-particle interactions in turbulence. When I’m not in the lab, I enjoy being outdoors and reading books.
research
publications on Google Scholar
Fluid-particle interactions in turbulence
![](/images/turb_mixing with waves8.png)
Microplastic particles at the ocean surface
Spotlight article![](/images/sphere-wall-still.png)
Particle-wall interactions
![](/images/OSL4_slow_meander-xxshort.gif)
Plastic particles in the SAFL Outdoor StreamLab
![](/images/disk_1165 - rod_2221.png)
Inertial disk and rod particles in a turbulent boundary layer
![](/images/video-still-crop.png)
Dense suspensions of large particles in a turbulent boundary layer
![](/images/Figure_5g.png)
Coherent clusters of particles homogeneous isotropic turbulence
connect
please don't hesitate to reach out at ljbak at uw dot edu.