DisCoVor 2026 features a lineup of distinguished keynote speakers, each bringing unique insights into the realm of vortex-dominated flows. We are proud to announce that Prof. Holger Babinsky from the University of Cambridge and Dr. Olivia Pomerenk from Brown University will be joining us to give keynote talks. Their presentations will encompass a diverse array of topics, including experimental methodologies, computational advancements, and theoretical developments.
Keynote Talks and Speakers
Holger Babinsky
Holger Babinsky studied Aerospace Engineering at Stuttgart University in Germany. He obtained a PhD in hypersonic aerodynamics from Cranfield University (UK) in 1994. After 18 months as Research Associate at the Shock Wave Research Center of Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan he returned to the UK to take up a position in the Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge. He is now Head of Fluid Mechanics, Energy and Turbomachinery as well as a Fellow of Magdalene College. His main areas of research are in the field of experimental aerodynamics and associated measurement techniques. Apart from shock-wave/boundary-layer interactions which he has studied for more than 30 years, he also works in unsteady aerodynamics, road vehicle aerodynamics, and flow control for aircraft wings and engine inlets. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Aeronautical Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Aeronautical Journal, the world’s oldest aerospace science journal, as well as an Associate Editor of Experiments in Fluids. He has co-authored (with Professor John Harvey, ex Imperial College) the first textbook on shock-wave/boundary-layer interactions, which has since been translated into Chinese.
Unsteady effects occur in many natural and technical flows, for example around flapping wings or during aircraft gust encounters. If the unsteadiness is large, the resulting forces can be quite considerable. However, the exact physical mechanisms underlying the generation of unsteady forces are complex and their accurate prediction remains challenging. One strategy is to identify the dominant effects and describe these with simple analytical models, first proposed a hundred years ago. Many of these approaches make use of vortex sheets which allows us to make interesting comparisons with experimental observations. When these simple models are successful, it also gives us a conceptual understanding of unsteady fluid mechanics and can even help some current flow problems.
In this lecture I will explain some of these ideas and demonstrate how they can still be useful today. As a practical example, I will show how the forces experienced in a wing-gust encounter can be predicted – and how the predictions can be used to mitigate the gust effects.
Olivia Pomerenk
Olivia Pomerenk is a Hope Street Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Center for Fluid Mechanics at Brown University. She develops reduced-order mathematical frameworks for fluid–structure interaction, with a focus on how unsteady flows and deformable bodies generate coordinated motion and propulsion in biological and engineered systems. Her earlier work used a combination of modeling, simulation, and experiments to explore the propulsive dynamics of active and passive rigid bodies. Her current research spans two primary directions: the collective dynamics of macroscopic agents — such as bird flocks, drone swarms, or human crowds — where interactions are mediated by flows, sensing, and feedback; and the coupling between flows and architected materials, including kirigami-inspired structures and stroke-dependent porous media, where active deformation dynamically alters transport and force generation. Across these systems, she seeks to identify how information pathways and mechanical responses co-evolve to produce emergent behavior. She obtained a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University in 2025 and a B.S. in applied and computational mathematics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2020.
Collective patterns of motion emerge across biological taxa: insects swarm, fish school, and birds flock. In particular, large migratory birds form strikingly ordered V-shaped formations, which experiments and direct numerical simulations have demonstrated provide substantial energetic benefits during long-distance flight. However, the precise aerodynamic and morphological mechanisms underlying these benefits remain unclear. In this work, we develop a reduced-order model of the wake-vortex interactions between two flapping birds flying in tandem. The model retains essential unsteady flapping dynamics while remaining computationally tractable. By optimizing over a six-dimensional state space, which comprises the follower's three-dimensional relative position as well as three independent flapping parameters, we identify the energetically optimal leader-follower configuration of northern bald ibises. The predicted optimum agrees quantitatively with live-bird measurements. Because of its simplicity, the model allows for direct interrogation of the physical mechanisms responsible for this optimum. In particular, it isolates precisely how the follower's wing kinematics interact with the leader's vortical wake to enhance aerodynamic efficiency. The model predicts an 11% reduction in total mechanical power for a follower in formation flight — consistent with experimental estimates — and clarifies, for the first time, how this saving is attained kinematically. These results provide a mechanistic explanation for the structure of V-formations and offer new insight into the aerodynamic principles governing collective flight.
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