Amir A. Pahlavan

Amir A. Pahlavan is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Yale University, with additional appointments in Materials Science. He leads the Pahlavan Research Lab, focusing on transport phenomena across dynamic environments, bridging physics, biology, geosciences, and engineering. His work addresses fundamental and applied questions impacting environmental sustainability, water resources, climate resilience, and human health.

Dr. Pahlavan holds a PhD from MIT (Mechanical Engineering), an M.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. from the University of Tehran. His research spans fluid mechanics, soft matter, biophysics, and transport phenomena. Current projects investigate bacteria-biofilm interactions in soils/oceans, biological network transport, and oceanic eddies' role in sea ice and microplastics.

His publications explore droplet evaporation, microbial dispersion in porous media, particle motion near rough surfaces, and fluid dynamics in capillary systems. He has received the NSF CAREER Award for his innovative work. Dr. Pahlavan organizes the weekly Soft, Fluid, Living Matter (SoFLivMat) Coffee Hour seminar series at Yale, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration.

His lab employs microfluidics, numerical simulations, and theoretical models to tackle complex transport challenges. Recent efforts include studying biofilm-microplastic interactions and self-organized transport in decentralized systems.