Doctoral student Watanabe Masahito (Faculty of Science and Engineering, School of Fundamental Science and Engineering)\u2014both research associate of Yoshimura Lab and member of Waseda University’s Multiscale Analysis, Modeling and Simulation Top Global University Project Unit\u2014received the 2020 Fluids Engineering Division\u2019s (FED) Summer Meeting Graduate Student Scholarship Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).<\/p>\n
The ASME provides scholarships for graduate students who have submitted a highly appreciated paper in the FED Summer Meeting. Scholars not only obtain a grant from the division; they are also assigned to one of the six FED Technical Committees to serve for one year. After fulfilling their assigned responsibilities, scholars receive their Graduate Student Scholarship Award.<\/p>\n
Watanabe’s award-winning research topic, “Experimental Analysis of Lagrangian Coherent Structures and Chaotic Mixing in Rayleigh\u2010Benard Convection”, explored measuring the two-dimensional velocity field of Rayleigh-Benard convection with perturbed velocity field via Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), and the experimental detection of invariant structures called the Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs) in order to clarify the global structures of chaotic fluid transports.<\/p>\n
Watanabe stated, “Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we recently have not had as many chances to interact with researchers in different countries abroad. It is not only a great honor to receive this award, but to have been able to exchange ideas with other global researchers through the program. Tough times may still wait ahead, but this experience has become the encouragement to continue with my endeavors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t