Rate My Professor Nicolas Francois

Associate Professor Nicolas Francois serves in the Department of Materials Physics within the Research School of Physics and Engineering at the Australian National University. He obtained his PhD in physics of fluids and polymers from the Université de Bordeaux. Joining ANU in 2012 as an experimentalist in the Physics of Fluids Laboratory, he has progressed to the position of Associate Professor. His research is curiosity-driven, centering on geomaterials physics, soft matter, structured materials, and fluid hydrodynamics. Fundamental investigations explore out-of-equilibrium physics, including fragmentation of solid materials, autonomous devices powered by chaotic flows, hydrodynamic waves, stochastic thermodynamics, granular matter, and polymer rheology. Applied research encompasses geomechanics and hydrology, such as comminution of geomaterials and mechanics plus fluid transport in fractured rocks characterized via X-ray tomography. Additional areas include fluid-structure interactions, wave-energy conversion, environmental fluid mechanics, solid and fluid mechanical metamaterials, physics and mechanics of biomaterials like wood and bone, rock mechanics, complex fluids, and granular materials.

Francois has earned the ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship for 2016-2018 on biofilms in two-dimensional turbulent flows: effects on Lagrangian transport, and the ARC Industry Fellowship for 2024-2030 on improving Australian iron ore comminution for green steel production. He has led or co-investigated several ARC grants, including the ARC Training Centre for Multiscale 3D Imaging, Modelling and Manufacturing, and facilities for 4D coherent imaging velocimetry and liquid metamaterials. His scholarly output comprises 56 research items, featuring publications in prominent journals. Notable works include "Improved particle separation, characterisation and analysis for ore beneficiation studies using 3D X-ray micro-computed tomography" (Minerals Engineering, 2024), "In-situ study of texture-breakage coupling in a copper ore using X-ray micro-CT" (Minerals Engineering, 2024), "Fluctuation-Induced Interaction in Turbulent Flows" (Physical Review Letters, 2022), "A versatile microtomography system to study in situ the failure and fragmentation in geomaterials" (Review of Scientific Instruments, 2022), and "A Hydrodynamic Analog of the Casimir Effect in Wave-Driven Turbulent Flows" (Fluids, 2022).