Jeffrey Moehlis

Associate Profesor

Mechanical Engineering

805-893-7513

moehlis [at] engineering [dot] ucsb [dot] edu

Institute Role
Member of Building & Design Solutions Group and Computing Solutions Group

Role in Affiliated Centers
Member of the Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation; the Center for Energy Efficiency Design and the Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing

The time a shear flow trajectory remains turbulent as a function of Reynolds number and the type and amplitude of initial perturbance; blue colors reflect short lifetimes, dark red colors indicate longer lifetimes.

Research
Jeffrey Moehlis’s research interests include applying dynamical systems techniques to understand the response dynamics of neural populations, the dynamics of natural and artifical swarms, the nature of shear flow turbulence, and the dynamics of individual and coupled MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) devices. In the area of energy generation, Moehlis is currently researching advanced concepts in vibrational energy harvesting devices that are used to capture energy from unwanted vibrations from vehicles, machinery and buildings. Moehlis has also applied his research to building systems integration by developing reduced-order models that capture particular characteristic behaviors of large systems (like building systems) but which are computationally inexpensive. Moehlis also works with other faculty members at the Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing to research airflow and control algorithms related to forced air cooling in computational facilities.

Biography
Jeffrey Moehlis received a B.S. degree in Physics and Mathematics from Iowa State University (1993) and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley (2000). He completed his postdoctoral research in the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University and then joined UC Santa Barbara in 2003 where he is currently an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Moehlis has over 45 publications and has served as a visiting researcher at the University of Bristol, England (2007) and the Fachbereich Physik der Philipps-Universität, Marburg, Germany (2003). He is the recipient of numerous awards including a Kavli Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences, Frontiers of Science (2008); a Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award from UC Santa Barbara (2008); a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2006-2011); and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Mathematics (2005-2007).