Meet the Faculty: Jennifer Franck

Passenger jet or flapping bat, Jennifer Frank writes code that simulates the flow of air around things with wings. The computational approach has advantages and efficiencies, especially for someone to whom coding comes naturally.

Jennifer Franck’s first foray into computing was on the venerable, if rudimentary, Commodore 64. As a child, she tapped out simple looping programs that sent a series of numbers to her printer. Since those early days, Franck’s programs have gotten considerably more complex.

Jennifer Franck
Lecturer in Engineering
Credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University

The new lecturer in engineering is an expert in computational fluid dynamics. She writes programs that simulate how fluids and gases flow around objects. Specifically, she codes what are called large-eddy simulations, a class of code designed to study turbulence. She mostly uses her model to investigate the dynamics of flight — how wind interacts with wings.

After earning her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Caltech in 2009, she came to Brown as a postdoc to work with Kenneth Breuer in engineering and Sharon Swartz in ecology and evolutionary biology, who are widely known for their research on the mechanics of bat flight. “What I was interested in was to see if I could explain some of the characteristics of animal flight using my models on the computer,” Franck said.

One of the questions Franck looked at is why bats flap their wings, as opposed to using them for soaring flight. “There’s a theory that bats evolved from passive gliders to actively flapping their wings,” she said. “The question was, what’s the benefit of flapping.”

Franck’s models helped to show that flapping creates vortices — tiny pockets of low air pressure — above a bat’s wings. Those vortices create extra lift and may be part of the reason flapping is worth the effort.

Franck has also used her models to explore applications that might improve aircraft flight. “Say you want an airplane to have more lift,” she said. “Could you apply some sort of device on the wing that would pump some extra energy into the flow and give you better performance? I’m interested in applying code to those types of flow control questions.”

There are significant advantages to the computational approach, Franck says. It’s much easier, for example, to modify the parameters of an experiment on a computer than it is to design new physical models for wind tunnel tests. Another advantage is that computer models help to isolate the specific aspects of a problem that researchers are trying to address.

“We generally model a very simple airfoil that’s often just two dimensional because it simplifies the problem,” Franck said. “If we’re looking at the basic physics behind a problem, we don’t want to make things too complicated.”

Though the models may be simple, the code that generates them is not. Most of Franck’s programs require computer clusters that string together multiple processors. For some of her research, Franck has used a cluster at Brown’s Center for Computation and Visualization. For other projects she’s used the Department of Defense’s Army Research Lab cluster in Maryland.

It’s a long way from the Commodore 64, but Franck is right at home. “Coding has always just come naturally to me,” she says.

She and her husband Christian, professor of engineering at Brown, live in Providence with their two kids.

- Kevin Stacey/Brown University

Christian Franck wins Haythornthwaite Research Initiation Grant from ASME Applied Mechanics Division

Christian Franck, an assistant professor in the School of Engineering at Brown University, has received a Haythornthwaite Research Initiation Grant, a new divisional award presented by the Applied Mechanics Division (AMD) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

This new grant targets university faculty that are at the beginning of their academic careers engaged in research in theoretical and applied mechanics. Professor Franck was one of three recipients of the 2011 awards, along with Dennis Kochmann of CalTech and Xuanhe Zhao of Duke. 

“This is a well deserved award for Professor Franck,” said Dean Larry Larson, “and this grant reflects the potential impact of his research program. The mechanics program has been an area of historic strength at Brown and it is one that continues to remain vibrant with bright, young professors such as Professor Franck.”

Professor Franck specializes in biomechanics and new experimental mechanics techniques at the micro and nanoscale. He received his B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia in 2003, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2004 and 2008. His doctoral research was on the development of a quantitative three-dimensional experimental technique for applications in soft biomaterials and cellular traction investigations. Dr. Franck held a post-doctoral position at Harvard investigating brain and neural trauma before beginning his appointment at Brown in 2009.

The Robert M. and Mary Haythornthwaite Foundation has been a generous supporter of the ASME Applied Mechanics Division (AMD).  The Foundation supports scientific research, primarily research in the field of theoretical and applied mechanics. Robert Haythornthwaite was founder and first President of the American Academy of Mechanics.

Robert Haythornthwaite, who grew up in England, also had a Brown connection. In 1950, he was award a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship and spent a year studying at Brown. After obtaining his Ph.D. from London University in 1952, he returned to Brown in 1953 to join the Division of Engineering at Brown before moving on to positions at Michigan, Penn State, and Temple.

STAC Awards Brown Engineers Funding for Collaborative Projects

The Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC) announced the awardees of the 2011 Collaborative Research Grant program. The awards will support eight projects representing the efforts of 23 scientists from 13 educational institutions, hospitals and private companies throughout Rhode Island. The Brown School of Engineering had scientists on two of the eight projects. Those projects will receive nearly $400,000 of the $1,435,822 that was awarded.  

Since the program's inception in 2007, STAC has awarded approximately $6.5 million to 38 teams of 97 researchers from 35 organizations -- and the program is returning dividends on this state investment. To date, STAC grant recipients have reported nearly $10 million in follow-on funding from federal and private sources. This outside investment has supported additional research efforts, new patents, new equipment and products and the formation of new companies.

Professors Christian Franck, Janet Blume, and Trey Crisco are working on concussion and traumatic brain injury and collaborating with Cheryl Liu, and Subham Sett from Simulia. They hope to work with companies in designing safer and improved protective gear and to aid the medical community in producing improved quantitative traumatic brain injury (TBI) diagnosis and assessment tools. They were awarded $194,809. 

Professor Bob Hurt and Love Sarin ScM'05 PhD'10 of Banyan Environmental will work to develop new technologies for reducing human health risks associated with anthropogenic mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and cement kilns. They were awarded $200,000.

The 2011 award recipients include academic and industry scientists pursuing research in disease prevention, mercury emission control, neurology and engineering and demonstrate the vitality and promise of the state's health, science, marine and technology sectors. Priority was given to high-impact projects that are collaborative across Rhode Island institutions, well positioned to receive follow-on funding, and aligned with the Rhode Island Science and Technology Plan.

Read the full press release (PDF) from the STAC
View presentation by Brendan McNally, Executive Director, RI-CIE (PDF)
Read the Providence Business story on the event
Read the Providence Journal story on the awardwinners

More about the 2011 Collaborative Research Grant Awardees:

Project 1: Development of multi-scale brain injury models for concussion and traumatic brain injury

This team is working to aid companies in designing safer and improved protective gear and to aid the medical community in producing improved quantitative traumatic brain injury (TBI) diagnosis and assessment tools.

Collaborators:
Christian Franck, Ph.D., Brown University
Janet Blume, Ph.D., Rhode Island Hospital
Joseph J. Crisco, Ph.D., Warren Alpert Medical School and Rhode Island Hospital
Cheryl Liu, Ph.D., Simulia
Subham Sett, Simulia

Project 2: Marine biofouling on high-performance molded materials

Researchers will use microscopic and molecular techniques to characterize the development of marine biofilms. By collaborating with a research university, Ametek SCP will be able to evaluate novel coatings and to expand its markets.

Collaborators:
Lucie Maranda, Ph.D., University of Rhode Island
Keunhan Park, Ph.D., University of Rhode Island
William Mildon, Ametek SCP

Project 3: A novel efficient technology for mercury emission control application

This team will work to develop new technologies for reducing human health risks associated with anthropogenic mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and cement kilns.

Collaborators:
Robert Hurt, Ph.D.,Brown University
Love Saran, Ph.D., Banyan Environmental Inc.

Project 4: A wound healing product for diabetic ulcers containing choroid plexus growth factors

Researchers will collaborate on development of a topical regenerative product for wound healing and will work to expand and strengthen preclinical research studies on the topic.

Collaborators:
Kim Boekelheide, MD/Ph.D.,Brown University
Moses Goddard, MD, CytoSolve
Chris Thanos, Ph.D., CytoSolve

Project 5: Antigenic targets of Candida albicans specific antibody fragments

The grant will support work to identify the molecular structure on the surface of the fungus Candida albican that are recognized by previously discovered antibodies to stop infection. This collaboration will support infrastructure at Bryant University, preliminary research for future federal grant dollars, and collaboration between universities.

Collaborators:
Joseph Bliss, MD/Ph.D., Women & Infants Hospital
Christopher Reid, Ph.D, Bryant University

Project 6: The inner-space classroom - Innovation for research and education in the ocean state

This group will develop software to provide access to marine science data and information through the University of Rhode Island's Inner Space Center. The grant will provide for increased marine science educational opportunities and enabling of research and education projects for federal funding.

Collaborators:
Dwight Coleman, Ph.D.,University of Rhode Island
Sara Hickox, University of Rhode Island
James Ferguson, RITE-Solutions

Project 7: Tick bite patch: Proof of concept for a first generation immunoinformatics derived anti-tick vaccine with transdermal delivery

This group will work to establish proof-of-principal for a catalytic approach to accelerate bench-to-clinic translation of a novel anti-tick vaccine for humans.

Collaborators:
Thomas Mather, Ph.D., University of Rhode Island
Keykavous Parang, Ph.D., University of Rhode Island
Anne DeGroot, MD, EpiVax, Inc.
William Martin, EpiVax, Inc.
Michael Jordan, Isis Biopolymers, Inc.
Leonard Moise, Ph.D., University of Rhode Island

Project 8: Tracing business-critical web applications

Researchers will develop techniques for comprehensive measurement of the performance of rich web applications by applying causal tracing techniques to both the server and client. This effort will combine the strengths of a university research setting with real client data.

Collaborators:
Rodrigo Fonesca, Ph.D., Brown University
Chris Erway, Ph.D., Tracelytics Inc.

Professor Franck studies cellular movement

Our cells are more like us than we may think. They’re sensitive to their environment, poking and prodding deliberately at their surroundings with hand-like feelers and chemical signals as they decide whether and where to move. Such caution serves us well but has vexed engineers who seek to create synthetic tissue, heart valves, implants and other devices that the human body will accept.

To overcome that obstacle, scientists have sought to learn more about how cells explore what’s around them. While numerous studies have looked at cellular movement in two dimensions and a few recent experiments involved cellular motion in three dimensions, scientists remained unsure just how much cells interacted with their surroundings. Now, a study involving Brown University and the California Institute of Technology has recorded for the first time how cells move in three dimensions by measuring the force exerted by cells on their environs. The research gives scientists their most complete assessment to date about how cells move.

To read more of the release, click here. Also, posted here.