Junlin Yuan

Dr. Junlin Yuan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State University, within the College of Engineering. Her research focuses on large-scale numerical simulations of complex turbulent shear flows, particularly addressing non-equilibrium turbulence, wall roughness, and fluid-structure interaction. Applications span engineering, environmental, and bio-locomotive systems. She has secured funding from NSF, ONR, and industry partners.

Education:

• Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, Queen's University, Canada (2015)
• M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Queen's University, Canada (2011)
• B.Eng. Aerospace Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China (2009)

Research Interests: Dr. Yuan's work emphasizes understanding turbulence in complex geometries through direct numerical simulations (DNS) and developing physics-based models. Key areas include roughness sublayer dynamics, adverse pressure gradient effects, hyporheic exchange modeling, and turbulence-induced noise prediction. Her lab, the Turbulence Simulation & Modeling (TSM) Lab, bridges fundamental turbulence physics with practical engineering challenges.

Grants & Advising: She secured a $400k NSF grant (CC* Compute) for high-memory computing infrastructure and a $490k NSF award on biomimetic fluid-structure interaction. Advised PhD students include Guangchen Shen, Saurabh Pargal, and Sai Mangavelli. Students have received fellowships such as the Richard H. Brown Endowed Fellowship and CFD Society of Canada scholarships.

Labs & Teams: Directs the TSM Lab, which employs DNS and CFD tools to explore turbulence in environmental and engineered systems. Collaborates on projects involving sediment-water interface dynamics and rough wall aerodynamics.