People

Dr. Lucas Franceschini

Now Assistant Professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil

Postdoc: January 2022 – April 2023

Dr. Luoqin Liu

Now Professor at USTC, China (NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund)

Wind farms in complex terrain

Postdoc: June 2018 – November 2021

Dr. Guiquan Wang

Now Senior R&D Engineer at IMEC

Turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection in spherical coordinates

Postdoc: November 2019 – December 2021

Dr. Ariane Emmanuelli

Now assistant professor at École Centrale de Lyon

Wind turbine modeling and noise propagation

Postdoc: November 2020 – August 2021

Dr. Mengqi Zhang

Now Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore; Humboldt Research Fellow (2024)

Flow structures and reduced order modeling of wind farm flows

Postdoc: September 2016 – January 2018

Dr. Yantao Yang

Now associate professor at Peking University, China

Direct numerical simulation of rotating convection

Postdoc: May 2013 – April 2017

Dr. Guru Sreevanshu Yerragolam

Now Process Researcher at Canon Production Printing; co-advised with Prof. Detlef Lohse and Prof. Roberto Verzicco

Sheared turbulent thermal convection

PhD graduated February 2024– “Sheared thermal convection”

Dr. Robert Hartmann

Now Research Associate in Meteorology at the University of Hamburg; co-advised with Prof. Detlef Lohse and Prof. Roberto Verzicco

Rotating convection

PhD graduated October 2023– “Rotation and confinement in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection”

Dr. Anja Stieren (now Schönebeck)

Now Wind-Resource Analyst and Scientific Lead at Pondera

Interaction between large scale wind farms

PhD graduated September 2022– “Large-eddy simulations of the interaction between wind farms and mesoscale effects”

Dr. Martin Assen

Now Metrology Functional Design Engineer at ASML; co-advised with Prof. Detlef Lohse and Prof. Roberto Verzicco

Numerical simulation of bubbles, drops and particles in turbulence

PhD graduated September 2022– “Wake-induced dynamics of anisotropic particles in homogeneous and shear flows”

Dr. Jessica Strickland

Now Researcher at KNMI

Analytical modelling and Large Eddy Simulation of large-scale wind farms

PhD graduated December 2021– “Modeling Wakes and Blockage in Large-scale Wind Farms”

Dr. Srinidhi Nagarada Gadde

Now Assistant Professor at ITC, University of Twente

Effect of atmospheric stability on wind farm performance

PhD graduated May 2021– “Large eddy simulations of stratified atmospheric boundary layers and wind farms”

Dr. Pieter Berghout

Now Senior Researcher at ASML; co-advised with Prof. Detlef Lohse and Prof. Roberto Verzicco

Roughness and spirals in Taylor-Couette flow

PhD graduated January 2021– “Wall-bounded turbulence with streamwise curvature”

Dr. Alexander Blass

Now Vice President of Strategy at NEURA Robotics; co-advised with Prof. Detlef Lohse and Prof. Roberto Verzicco

Sheared convection and large scale structures in Rayleigh-Bénard Turbulence

PhD graduated September 2020– “Sheared Rayleigh-Bénard Turbulence”

Dr. Jens Kasper

Now at NLR–Netherlands Aerospace Centre

PhD graduated September 2025; postdoc August 2025 – January 2026– “Large-scale Interactions between Wind Farms and the Atmosphere”

Dr. Xiaojue Zhu

Now Max Planck group leader in Göttingen, Germany

Roughness in Taylor-Couette flow, PhD/Postdoc

PhD graduated February 2018 (cum laude); postdoc February – December 2018– “Taylor-Couette and Rayleigh-Bénard turbulence: the role of the boundaries”

Dr. Luis “Tony” Martínez-Tossas

Now Chief Technology Officer and co-founder at Novo Blades, and Aerodynamics and Wake Modeling Specialist at Wind Wake Solutions (co-advised with Prof. Dennice Gayme and Prof. Charles Meneveau)

Wind-turbine modeling, PhD

PhD from Johns Hopkins University, 2017 (overlapped with Richard Stevens' own postdoc there)– “Large Eddy Simulations and Theoretical Analysis of Wind Turbine Aerodynamics Using an Actuator Line Model”

Dr. Rodolfo Ostilla Mónico

Now Profesor Titular de Universidad at the University of Cádiz, Spain; ERCOFTAC da Vinci Competition finalist (2015)

Direct numerical simulations of turbulent Taylor-Couette, PhD

PhD graduated February 2015– “Highly turbulent Taylor-Couette flow: direct numerical simulations”

Dr. Erwin van der Poel

Now operational analyst at Thales, Netherlands (co-advised with Prof. Detlef Lohse and Prof. Roberto Verzicco)

Connecting flow structures and heat flux in Rayleigh-Bénard convection, PhD

PhD graduated July 2015– “Structures, boundary layers and plumes in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection”

Dr. Yang Liu

Now Postdoctoral Researcher in the Fluid Mechanics and Turbulence group, Aarhus University, Denmark

PhD graduated December 2025– “Dynamic wind and wake effects in wind farms: Simulations and modeling”