This $361,476 National Science Foundation project grant supports research at the University of Pittsburgh to advance understanding of the two-way coupling between active matter and transport barriers in unsteady flows. Funded under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), the three-year award will investigate how light-guided brine shrimp interact with and influence large-scale transport structures in electromagnetically driven laboratory flows. Through two aims, the grantee will determine relevant non-dimensional groups governing the active-barrier coupling and examine how small-scale activity propagates to modify large-scale transport. The results are intended to inform control strategies for active matter in real-world scenarios, such as aquatic ecology and bio-inspired design applications.
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