John Dabiri

John Oluseun Dabiri is a Nigerian-American engineer and professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he holds joint appointments in aerospace and mechanical engineering. Dabiri Lab
''John Dabiri''. Retrieved 27 September 2019.His academic work includes research in unsteady fluid mechanics and flow physics, with applications in biology, renewable energy, and environmental systems. His studies on biological fluid dynamics have included investigations of jellyfish propulsion.

Dabiri also designed a vertical-axis wind turbine system influenced by the movement patterns of schooling fish to improve wind energy efficiency.

Early life and education

Dabiri’s interest in engineering was influenced by observing his father's technical work during his childhood.USA Africa Dialogue
Retrieved 23 July 2012. He graduated first in his high school class in 1997 and later attended Princeton University, where he earned a B.S.E. in mechanical and aerospace engineering. His undergraduate thesis focused on rotor blade aerodynamics using particle image velocimetry and computational models.Caltech PR
Retrieved 23 July 2012.

Educated at a small Baptist high school, where he graduated first in his class in 1997, Dabiri was accepted by Princeton. He was primarily interested in rockets and jets,NPR
California Biophysicist Named MacArthur Fellow. 6 October 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2012. and spent two summers doing research that included work on helicopter design. The summer after his junior year, he accepted a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) in Aeronautics at Caltech, which influenced his interest in the field of biomechanics and in studying the vortices of swimming jellyfish.

Dabiri graduated summa cum laude with a B.S.E. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton in 2001, after completing a senior thesis titled ''An Investigation of Small-Scale Rotor Blade Aerodynamic Phenomena Using Particle Image Velocimetry and Computational Models'' under the supervision of Professor Fred Dryer. Dabiri then returned to Caltech for graduate studies. He was a finalist for both the Rhodes Scholarship and the Marshall Scholarship. He was awarded a Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowship in 2001, but declined it.

Career

From 2005 to 2009, Dabiri was an assistant professor at Caltech in aeronautics and bioengineering. He was promoted to tenure at the age of 29America's Geniuses
Posted 14 October 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2012. and to full professor in 2010. In 2013-2014, he served as chair of the Faculty Board and was the Dean of Undergraduate Students from 2014 to 2015.

In 2015, Dabiri moved to Stanford as a professor in civil, environmental, and mechanical engineering. There, he was also a senior fellow in Stanford's Center for Turbulence Research and founding director of the Catalyst for Collaborative Solutions initiative.

In 2019, he returned to Caltech as Centennial Chair Professor in aeronautics and mechanical engineering.John Dabiri Curriculum Vitae
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Since 2021, he has been a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Dabiri serves or has served on the Board of Directors of NVIDIA Corporation, the Board of Trustees of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the United States Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB), and as an advisor to X at Alphabet Inc. (formerly GoogleX). Additionally, he was the Chair of the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics, as well as a member of the National Academies' Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics and the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, the U.S. National Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNCTAM) and the Defense Science Study Group.

Research

In his first tenure at Caltech, Dabiri was the director of the Biological Propulsion Laboratory,Biological Propulsion Laboratory
. See the ''People'' page. Retrieved 23 July 2012. which examined fluid transport with applications in aquatic locomotion, fluid dynamic energy conversion, and cardiac flows, as well as applying theoretical methods in fluid dynamics and concepts of optimal vortex formation. He established the Caltech Field Laboratory for Optimized Wind Energy (FLOWE) in 2011, a wind farm that investigates energy exchange in an array of vertical-axis wind turbines.

To further ''in situ'' digital particle image velocimetry measurements of propulsion in aquatic animals, Dabiri and his student K. Katija designed and patented a device to accurately measure the kinetic energy due to swimming. The technique allowed for refinement and testing of previous models for vortex formation.

Noting constructive interference in the hydrodynamic wakes of schooling fish, Dabiri suggested that extracting energy from flow vortices could aid more than locomotion. His models of the energy extraction mechanism are applicable to the design and evaluation of unsteady aero and hydrodynamic energy conversion systems such as wind farms. The design of an array of vertical axis turbines led to about an order of magnitude increase in power output per area. Dabiri partnered wit
Windspire Energy
for the use of three of twenty four turbines that stand approximately 30 feet tall and 4 feet wide. He started the company Scalable Wind Solutions, to commercialize the software used to optimally place the wind turbines. Ongoing commercialization of vertical-axis wind turbines is being pursued by XFlow Energy, a company co-founded by a Ph.D. alumnus from his lab. Further research on wind farm design is being led by two additional Ph.D. alumni who became professors at MIT and the University of Pennsylvania respectively. Research on jellyfish swimming led to the U.S. Navy funding development of an underwater craft that propels itself based on these concepts, using up to 30% less energy than conventionally propelled craft.

After returning to Caltech, Dabiri’s research has focused on the hydrodynamics of electromechanically modified jellyfish which he envisions for use in ocean exploration. Because jellyfish have no brain or pain receptors, Dabiri and colleagues have shown that their swimming can be controlled without causing harm. Moreover, both the speed and efficiency of swimming can be improved by robotic control.

An additional area of research in Dabiri’s lab focuses on the physics of turbulence transition, a longstanding challenge in the field of fluid mechanics. His recent work is exploring the role of the fluid-solid interface in theoretical predictions of turbulence transition. Additional research involves the development of new experimental techniques to measure the “no-slip condition” of fluid flow at walls bounding the flow, which recent theoretical work suggests might be relevant to the problem of turbulence transition.

Teaching

Dabiri was named Professor Of The Month at Caltech in February 2012.Prof of the Month
Filed 27 February 2012. Retrieved 23 July 2012. He has taught classes including a graduate class on propulsion, a biomechanics course, a lab class on experimental methods in aeronautics and applied physics and the introduction fluid mechanics course.

His interest in motivating students considering STEM fields was recounted in an NPR interview.

"Having two parents who encouraged me and in some cases forced me to study and to really take academics seriously, was very important at an early stage. And then going through school, the role of my teachers was always so important. I remember my fourth-grade teacher ... hemade me believe that I was smart and so I took that and sort of owned that and tried to live up to the expectations that she had placed on me, even as a fourth grader. And so we really want to grab hold of the imagination of the first graders and the second graders at a very early stage, and get them excited about becoming scientists, as excited as they are about becoming a fire fighter or the next rap star."

He has also been involved in his church's mentoring program, The Faith Foundation.

Honors and awards

Early honors include a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and being named as one of ''Popular Science'' magazine's "''Brilliant 10''" scientists in 2008.Jellyfish Engineer
. ''Popular Science''. Posted 15 October 2008. Retrieved 19 Jan 2018.

In 2010 Dabiri was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his theoretical engineering work.MacArthur Foundation
''John Dabiri''. 25 January 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2012. That same year, he gave the Convocation Address at Caltech.Caltech Today
9 September 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2012.

Bloomberg Businessweek magazine listed him among its 2012 Technology Innovators.John Dabiri Unlocks the Mysteries of Jellyfish
Published 05 April 2012. Retrieved 23 July 2012.

Dabiri was awarded the 2020 Alan T. Waterman Award from NSF. In 2023, he was awarded the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award for aquatic sciences.

Dabiri has been awarded NSF research grants multiple times in more than five different fields. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

In January 2025, President Joe Biden awarded Dabiri the National Medal of Science.

Film consulting

In 2021, Dabiri served as a scientific consultant for Jordan Peele's science fiction film Nope . His role included advising on the biology-inspired design of the fictional creature, which drew on locomotion mechanisms observed in marine invertebrates such as jellyfish and squid.. The goal of the collaboration was to create an undiscovered aerial predator with the ability to "hide in the clouds" (hence the scientific name of the fictional race: ''occulonimbus edoequus''), "generate electric fields" and use "electric propulsion".

References

Notable publications

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External links

Dabiri home page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dabiri, John
American aerospace engineers
American bioengineers
American biophysicists
American people of Nigerian descent
American people of Yoruba descent
Yoruba engineers
Nigerian engineers
California Institute of Technology alumni
California Institute of Technology faculty
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
People from Toledo, Ohio
Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni
Nigerian inventors
21st-century American engineers
Stanford University School of Engineering faculty
Fellows of the American Chemical Society
21st-century American inventors
Year of birth missing (living people)