معرفی
Sharon Swartz is a Professor of Biology and Professor of Engineering at Brown University, where she has made significant contributions to the understanding of bat flight biomechanics and evolutionary morphology. Her interdisciplinary research bridges biology, engineering, and physics, with a focus on the aerodynamics, mechanics, and evolution of animal flight, particularly in bats.
Her educational background includes a BA in Biology and Anthropology/Sociology from Oberlin College (1981), followed by a PhD in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology from the University of Chicago (1988). After completing her doctorate, she joined the faculty at Northwestern University in the interdisciplinary Primate Biology Graduate Program before moving to Brown University.
Professor Swartz's research focuses on the biomechanics of bat flight, examining how the unique structure of bat wings enables their remarkable aerial capabilities. Her work spans multiple disciplines including aerodynamics, biomaterials, evolutionary biology, and fluid dynamics. She investigates the mechanical properties of bat wing tissues, dynamics of wing movements during flight, fluid dynamics of highly flexible airfoils, and aerodynamics and energetics of bat flight. Her research integrates biological and physical studies of natural flight in living bats, studies of robotic bat wings, and computational simulations.
Through experimental fluid dynamics, her lab has made significant contributions to understanding the wake structures generated by bat flight and how these differ from birds and insects. Her pioneering work on compliant airfoils has demonstrated their remarkable capacity to generate lift at zero and very high angles of attack, with implications for both understanding bat flight evolution and developing bio-inspired aerial robotics.
- 2014 Elizabeth LeDuc Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Life Sciences
- 2013 Distinguished Alumni Service Award, The University of Chicago
- 2013 Selected for NSF Exhibit, AAAS National Meeting
- 2012 Featured Researcher, Air Force Office of Scientific Research 60th Anniversary Video
- 2011 Elected Chair, Division of Comparative Biomechanics, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
- 2010 Karen T. Romer Prize for Excellence in Advising
Her research has been supported by substantial funding from the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and other organizations. Current projects include collaborative research on "The Rules of Predation: Linking Biomechanics and Ecology in the Bat-Insect Arms Race" and Hyundai Visionary Challenge projects on "Robust Bat-inspired Aerial Robotics." Her lab has been instrumental in developing aeroecology as a new field of study.
The Aeromechanics & Evolutionary Morphology Lab at Brown University, led by Professor Swartz, brings together researchers from diverse disciplines to study the intersection of biomechanics, evolutionary biology, and engineering. The lab maintains active collaborations with researchers in computer science, mathematics, and engineering, reflecting the highly interdisciplinary nature of her work on bat flight and its applications to bio-inspired robotics.
