Varghese Mathai

Varghese Mathai joined as a faculty member in the UMass Amherst physics department in Fall 2020. He holds a PhD degree in Applied Physics from University of Twente the Netherlands. Following his PhD he did a short postdoc at the Max Planck Center for Complex Fluids Dynamics in the Netherlands, and then a 2-year postdoc at Brown university where he worked on bioinspired membranes. His research interests are in the mechanics of soft materials and their interactions with fluids. Varghese’s PhD work was selected for the Da Vinci award for top 5 PhD theses in Europe in the area of Fluid mechanics and turbulence. In 2018 he received the European COST prize in Flowing Matter. His recent research on airborne transmission risks in passenger cars was featured in the New York times, the Washington Post and several other media.