Rishita Das is a PhD candidate in the department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, pursuing research in turbulence, under the supervision of Dr. Sharath Girimaji. She holds Bachelor of Technology and Master of Technology degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India, where she graduated top of her class with an Institute Silver Medal. She is also an Amelia Earhart Fellow and a DAAD-WISE scholar. Her research interests are broadly in numerical simulation, physical analysis, and modeling of complex physical systems such as turbulent flows. Her doctoral dissertation research focuses on geometry and dynamics of velocity gradients in turbulent flows. Her work will help improve the understanding of small-scale processes in turbulence. Her developed data-driven stochastic model for velocity gradient evolution will be able to accurately reproduce the turbulence small- scale dynamics, leading toward computationally viable multi-fidelity simulations of complex turbulent flows. She has authored articles in prestigious journals like Journal of Fluid Mechanics and New Journal of Physics. In the past, she has worked on research problems in computational fluid dynamics, heat transfer and compressible flow physics. She studied the performance of high-resolution numerical schemes in capturing shock-wave reflection and interactions in supersonic flows. At General Electric, she designed an effective cooling system via air jet impingements in the exhaust frame of gas turbines. At the University of Stuttgart, she studied the non-equilibrium flow physics during hypersonic reentry. In future, she aspires to develop expertise in understanding and modeling turbulent flows and other complex systems.
