About
I am a Group Leader at the Chair of Building Physics (CBP) and Senior Scientist (Oberassistent) and Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zürich. My research sits at the intersection of fluid engineering and multiscale heat transfer for sustainable systems and climate.
I earned my PhD in fluid mechanics from the University of Sydney, where my work on the transition of natural convection boundary layers revealed resonance-triggered heat transfer enhancement and controlled transition mechanisms — published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. As a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge (SNSF scientific exchange grant), I broadened this foundation toward urban-scale flows.
Today my group combines water-tunnel PIV–LIF experiments, CFD and WRF simulations, and machine learning to understand and mitigate urban heat — from street-canyon buoyancy and tree cooling to city-scale heat island dynamics and heat-related policy.
I serve as a guest editor at Building and Environment and on the editorial board of City and Built Environment, and I am always open to multidisciplinary collaboration.
Research
From fundamental transition physics to machine-learning-assisted urban climate science — six threads, one goal: cooler, more livable cities.
Urban heat mitigation pathways
Prioritizing nature-based solutions and technological innovations to accelerate cooling — and aligning urban cooling strategies with global warming trends across Hong Kong, Sydney, Montreal, Zurich, and London.
Buoyant flows in street canyons
Quantifying how thermal buoyancy interacts with wind and canyon morphology to govern heat removal, pollutant dispersion, thermal comfort, and building energy use.
Cooling power of urban trees
Coupled airflow–heat–moisture–radiation simulations of vegetation in street canyons, including tree-size effects on nighttime microclimate under real heatwave conditions.
Machine learning for urban heat
Validated WRF simulations combined with ML to disentangle how urban morphology, anthropogenic heat, and wind dynamics drive heat islands during heatwaves — and to map city-scale air temperature.
PIV–LIF flow & heat diagnostics
Concurrent velocity–temperature field measurements with non-toxic dyes in large water tunnels — decisive progress enabling laboratory modelling of urban heat.
Transition of thermal boundary layers
DNS-based stability analysis and laser diagnostics of laminar–turbulent transition in natural convection — resonance-triggered heat transfer enhancement and controlled transitions.
Selected publications
40+ peer-reviewed articles. A selection below — full list on Google Scholar ↗
Teaching & supervision
Urban Physics — Lead Lecturer
The state of the art in urban climate research: urban heat islands, urban wind, vegetation, thermal comfort, and climate mitigation strategies. Each semester includes hands-on workshops with laboratory tests and field measurements, plus invited speakers — including Prof. Diana Ürge-Vorsatz (2023).
Master's theses & open materials
I supervise Master's projects on topics such as:
- Machine learning for urban climate and heat mitigation
- Aerodynamic and thermal effects of urban vegetation
I also share PIV learning resources — code, particle images, lecture notes, and video demonstrations.
Let's collaborate
Open to multidisciplinary research and collaboration across fluid mechanics, urban climate, heat mitigation, and data-driven approaches to sustainable cities.
Dept. of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zürich