A $625,000 Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering to Z. Jane Wang will help the Cornell assistant professor of theoretical and applied mechanics develop better computer models for the complex fluid dynamics of insect flight.
Wang hopes her research will develop what she calls "the virtual insect," a three-dimensional, computer-based model of the interactions between wing surfaces of an animal that travels by flapping flight and the air through which it maneuvers. She envisions a generic insect, "something like a puppet of a dragonfly, immersed in fluid (the air), which will fly according to the law of aerodynamics as the strings (muscles) are pulled." Along with her postdoctoral and graduate student collaborators, the physicist is setting up a lab to film insects and perform related fluid dynamics experiments. "We might even learn more about how the insects came about by creating our own and by studying the real thing," she said.
The five-year fellowship is one of only 20 awarded nationwide this year by the Packard Foundation.
Previous honors to Wang, who joined the College of Engineering faculty in 1999, include a National Science Foundation early career award and a young investigator award by the Office of Naval Research.
At Cornell, she teaches an undergraduate-level course in differential equations, and next semester she will teach Biofluid Dynamics, a course for graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
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