Dr. Umberto Ciri -Faculty - Mechanical Engineering

Assistant Professor

Fluid Mechanics

Office: L-201

T: 787-832-4040

Ph.D.	The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, USA, 2019
M.Sc.	Università di Pisa, Italy, 2015
B.Sc.	Università di Pisa, Italy, 2012

2021-Present	Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Puerto at Mayagüez
2019-2021	Research Associate, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas

	Doctoral Research Award in Mechanical Engineering Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Texas at Dallas
	Sponsored student for NSF I/UCRC Biennial Meeting, Washington, DC, July 26th–28th NSF I/UCRC WindSTAR

Ciri U., Bennett R.L., Bhui R., Molony D.S., Samady H., Meyer C., Hayenga H.N. &
Leonardi S. Coupled bio-hemodynamics simulations of leukocyte adhesion in coronary
arteries: comparison against clinical data. Journal of Biomechanics (under review).

Bernardoni F., Ciri U., Rotea M. & Leonardi S. Simplifying the optimization of an array
of turbines into the optimization of smaller indepedent clusters. Journal of Renewable and
Sustainable Energy (under review).

Ciri U., Garimella M.M., Bernardoni F., Bennett R.L. & Leonardi S. Uncertainty quantification of wildfire propagation forecast. International Journal of Wildland Fire (under
review)

Ciri U. & Leonardi S. (2021) Heat transfer in a turbulent channel flow with super-hydrophobic
or liquid-infused walls. Journal of Fluid Mechanics 908, A28.

Yu H., Ciri U., Leonardi S. & Malik A. (2020) Decoupled Effects of Localized Camber and
Spanwise Bending for Flexible Thin Wing. AIAA Journal 58(5): 2293–2306.

Reviewer for: Wind Energy, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, Journal of
Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Energies, Atmosphere, Sustainability, International Journal
of Electrical Power and Energy Systems.

Jonsson School Dean search: graduate students’ representative for the finalists’ interview process

Membership in professional organizations: American Physical Society (APS), American Geophysical Union (AGU)

Wind Energy: In recent years, wind energy has emerged as a key player in the effort to supersede fossil fuel generation. However, despite a considerable growth, wind energy is yet to reach its full potential because of several engineering challenges. Recent advances in computational fluid dynamics have enabled the creation of virtual wind farm environments, reproducing with high-fidelity the flow past wind turbines. This novel tool can provide insights on performances and physical mechanisms to overcome the engineering challenges and drive forward in the path towards sustainable energy generation.

Turbulence: Turbulent flows are the norm, rather than exception, in Nature and engineering applications. Nevertheless, the fundamental mechanisms are not yet fully understood. Numerical simulations have emerged as a powerful tool to analyze turbulent flows, which can provide both fundamental knowledge and valuable insights to solve engineering problems, such as drag reduction or heat transfer enhancement.