Rajat Mittal

About

Rajat Mittal is a professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, specializing in computational fluid dynamics. His research group, the Flow Physics and Computation Lab, develops and employs computational methods to model various flows, with a focus on immersed boundary methods, vortex dominated flows, biomedical fluid dynamics, biological and bioinspired locomotion such as swimming and flying, bioacoustics, active flow control, fluid-structure interaction, and high-performance computing. Due to the cross-disciplinary nature of his work, he collaborates extensively with researchers from zoology, cardiology, robotics, biomechanics, and dynamics, making significant contributions to the fields of computational fluid mechanics and biomechanics.

Research topics

• Artificial Intelligence
• Medicine
• Physics
• Computer Science
• Simulation
• Mechanics
• Risk analysis (engineering)
• Telecommunications
• Virology
• Ecology

Selected publications

• Flow Physics of COVID-19

  Journal of Fluid Mechanics · 2020 · 527 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Flow physics plays a key role in nearly every facet of the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the generation and aerosolization of virus-laden respiratory droplets from a host, its airborne dispersion and deposition on surfaces, as well as the subsequent inhalation of these bioaerosols by unsuspecting recipients. Fluid dynamics is also key to preventative measures such as the use of face masks, hand-washing, ventilation of indoor environments, and even social distancing. This article summarizes wh…

  DOI

• A mathematical framework for estimating risk of airborne transmission of COVID-19 with application to face mask use and social distancing

  Physics of Fluids · 2020 · 141 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  A mathematical model for estimating the risk of airborne transmission of a respiratory infection such as COVID-19 is presented. The model employs basic concepts from fluid dynamics and incorporates the known scope of factors involved in the airborne transmission of such diseases. Simplicity in the mathematical form of the model is by design so that it can serve not only as a common basis for scientific inquiry across disciplinary boundaries but it can also be understandable by a broad audience o…

  DOI

• Effect of hydrodynamic wakes in dynamical models of large-scale fish schools

  Physics of Fluids · 2025-01-01 · 11 citations

  articleSenior author

  A novel hydrodynamic model of the wake of a swimming fish is developed and incorporated into a dynamical model of a fish school to explore the effect of hydrodynamics on the emergent behavior in schooling fish. The model incorporates well-established rules for attraction, alignment, and visual detection via a force-momentum balance in the surge, sway, and yaw directions, thereby allowing us to include the effects of body size, shape, and inertia into the dynamics of fish swimming in a plane. The…

  PublisherDOI

• Computational modelling and analysis of the coupled aero-structural dynamics in bat-inspired wings

  Journal of Fluid Mechanics · 2025-05-09 · 10 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We employ a novel computational modelling framework to perform high-fidelity direct numerical simulations of aero-structural interactions in bat-inspired membrane wings. The wing of a bat consists of an elastic membrane supported by a highly articulated skeleton, enabling localised control over wing movement and deformation during flight. By modelling these complex deformations, along with realistic wing movements and interactions with the surrounding airflow, we expect to gain new insights into…

  PublisherDOI

• Hydrodynamically beneficial school configurations in carangiform swimmers: insights from a flow-physics informed model

  Journal of Fluid Mechanics · 2025-07-07 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Researchers have long debated which spatial arrangements and swimming synchronisations are beneficial for the hydrodynamic performance of fish in schools. In our previous work (Seo and Mittal, Bioinsp. Biomim. , Vol. 17, 066020, 2022), we demonstrated using direct numerical simulations that hydrodynamic interactions with the wake of a leading body -caudal fin carangiform swimmer could significantly enhance the swimming performance of a trailing swimmer by augmenting the leading-edge vortex (LEV)…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• UNS: Coupled Flow-Chemistry Modeling of Thrombogensis in Human Ventricles

  NSF · $290k · 2015–2020

• SCH: INT: Mapping the Cardiac Acousteome: Biosensing and Computational Modeling Applied to Smart Diagnosis and Monitoring of Heart Conditions

  NSF · $2.0M · 2013–2018

• Collaborative Research: Effective Face Masks to Mitigate COVID-19 Transmission: Insights from Multimodal Quantitative Analysis

  NSF · $336k · 2020–2025

Frequent coauthors

• Jung-Hee Seo

  Johns Hopkins University

  91 shared

• Louis N. Cattafesta

  39 shared

• Jung Hee Seo

  Johns Hopkins University

  36 shared

• Charles Meneveau

  32 shared

• Meliha Bozkurttas

  28 shared

• H. S. Udaykumar

  25 shared

• Fady Najjar

  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  25 shared

• Donghyun You

  Pohang University of Science and Technology

  24 shared

Education

• PhD, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics

  University of Illinois System

  1995

• M.S., Aerospace Engineering

  University of Florida

  1991

Awards & honors

• 2025 American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineeri…
• 1996 Francois Frenkiel Award from the Division of Fluid Dyna…
• 2022 Stanley Corrsin Award from the Division of Fluid Dynami…
• 2006 Lewis Moody Award from the American Society of Mechanic…
• 2021 Freeman Scholar Award from the American Society of Mech…

Similar researchers at Johns Hopkins University

• Joseph Katzh-84
• Gretar Tryggvasonh-65
• Louis Whitcombh-54