Rate My Professor Howard Stone

Stone’s research focuses on fluid dynamics, particularly problems involving low-Reynolds-number flows that arise at the interfaces of engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology. His laboratory integrates theory, computer simulations, modeling, and experiments to investigate microfluidics, multiphase flows, electrokinetics, flows with bacteria and biofilms, and complex fluids. Notable applications include biological fluid dynamics in microchannels and fluid mechanics related to virus transmission during speech. Key publications encompass the highly influential review “Engineering flows in small devices: microfluidics toward a lab-on-a-chip” (Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, 2004) and recent articles such as “On the self-similarity of unbounded viscous Marangoni flows” (Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2024) and “Building on-chip cytoskeletal circuits via branched microtubule networks” (PNAS, 2024). Stone has garnered major awards including the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the first G.K. Batchelor Prize in Fluid Dynamics (2008), the American Physical Society Fluid Dynamics Prize (2016), election to the National Academy of Engineering (2009), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011), the National Academy of Sciences (2014), the American Philosophical Society (2022), and the Royal Society as Foreign Member (2022). He serves as Editor of the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics since 2021, was Associate Editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics for ten years, chairs editorial boards for Physical Review Fluids, Langmuir, and Soft Matter, and previously chaired the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics.