Professors Alexander Smits (Princeton) and Hilary Bart-Smith (University of Virginia) decided to arrange a competition between their students to see who could design the best manta ray inspired robot. Mohammad Javed ’11, a mechanical engineering major, took on the project as a senior thesis and represented Princeton.

Swimming like butterflies underwater, with mesmerizing ease and grace, manta rays are the envy of engineers seeking more efficient underwater vehicles.

Princeton University graduate students Giada Damen, Marcus Hultmark, Noam Lupu and Silviu Pufu have been named as co-winners of the Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellowship, Princeton’s top honor for graduate students.

Secondary motions downstream of pipe curvatures are widely studied for low and moderate Reynolds numbers, where the secondary flows are driven by the centrifugal pressure gradient.