About me:


Prior to joining IIT Bombay in September 2012, I was a post-doctoral research scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a United States Department of Energy (DOE) laboratory, located in Los Alamos, New Mexico. From January 2009 to August 2012, I worked on Rayleigh-Bénard convection in the presence of rotational effects, in the Centre for Non-Linear Studies (CNLS) group, and on shock-driven Richtmyer-Meshkov flow, as a member of the Extreme Fluids team in Physics Division at LANL. I received my Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Arizona State University (ASU) in 2008 and 2005, respectively. My Ph.D. thesis was on experimental and theoretical modeling of sediment transport under oscillating flows. I got my B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Shanmugha College of Engineering (now, SASTRA), Bharathidasan University, India in 2003.

About my research:


My current area of research involves the study of fluid, thermal instabilities and turbulent mixing which is extremely important for understanding a variety of flows occurring in nature. These can range from meso-scale flows (e.g., ocean-atmospheric coupling, large scale convection, supernova), to micro-scale flows (e.g., flow in a micro-channel, nanotubes and micro-aero vehicles). With the advent of super computers and parallel computing, high-resolution-precision experimental measurements using state-of-the-art diagnostics is indispensible for verification & validation purposes. My research group performs high resolution laser based experimental measurements and computational simulations to study and understand various aspects of fluid dynamics and mixing. My group also studies geophysical flows relevant to ocean and atmosphere dynamics. More details are given under the 'Research' tab.

About GMFL:


My group works in the area of geophysical flows which, deals with the dynamics of large scale planetary systems and multi phase flows that are prevalent in engineering and industrial systems. We use state-of-the-art experimental techniques to measure turbulence and mixing statistics in such fluid flows. This is coupled with theoretical and numerical analysis. Currently there are three doctoral students, few masters' students and research associates working in my group.

The GMFL laboratory has three fully functional experimental set-ups namely stratified tank facility, recirculating water channel, and rotating coriolis table. All these set-ups employ diagnostics such as high-resolution camera and simultaneous particle image velocimetry (PIV) and laser induced fluorescence (LIF).

For opportunities in my group, click here.

3-month Summer OR 1-month Winter internship for students is NOT available. Please DON'T send emails with such requests.

Recent news:


  • Prof. Sridhar Balasubramanian has been invited to join the Editorial board of Journal of Environmental Fluid Mechanics for a period of three years starting January 2018.

  • Prof. Sridhar is now a Shastri Fellow. He was awarded the Shastri Institute Collaborative Research Grant (SICRG), funded by Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, for a joint collaborative research work with Prof. Bruce Sutherland, University of Alberta, Canada.

  • Prof. Sridhar Balasubramanian was featured in "The Economic Times" June 16, 2019 edition. Article title "War of the weathervanes"

  • Avick Sinha successfully defended his PhD thesis and is now a postdoctoral fellow at University of Nottingham. Congrats!

  • Ms. Shikha Singh wins the prestigious Fulbright-Kalam fellowship. As a part of this fellowship, she will be spending 9 months at University of Dartmouth, Massachusetts working with Prof. Amit Tandon

  • Mr. Mohnish Kapil will be spending 4 months as an exchange student at University of Alberta, Canada, working with Prof. Bruce Sutherland. This is a part of our Shastri Institute Collaborative Research Grant (SICRG), funded by Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute

  • Ms. Mousumi Sarkar and Ms. Shikha Singh receive the AGU travel grant to attend the AGU Fall meeting. Congrats!

  • Mr. Harish N. Mirajkar is awarded the CSIR tavel grant to attend the 72nd APS-DFD meeting to be held in Seattle USA in Nov 2019. Congrats!

    • News archive