Duke Applied Mathematics

Thomas P Witelski, Professor of Mathematics

Contact Info:

Office Location:	295 Physics
Office Phone:	(919) 660-2841
Email Address:

Teaching (Spring 2012):

• MATH 228.01, MATHEMATICAL FLUID DYNAM Synopsis

  Physics 119, WF 01:15 PM-02:30 PM

• MATH 229.01, MATHEMATICAL MODELING Synopsis

  Physics 119, WF 02:50 PM-04:05 PM

Education:

PhD, Applied Math	Caltech	1995
BS in Engineering	Cooper Union	1991
Diploma	Stuyvesant High School	1987

Specialties:

Applied Math

Research Interests: Fluid Dynamics, Perturbation Methods, Asymptotic Analysis, Nonlinear Ordinary and Partial differential equations

Keywords:

Fluid Dynamics • Perturbation Methods • Asymptotic Analysis • Nonlinear Ordinary and Partial differential equations

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

• Harrison D. Potter  

Postdocs Mentored

• Rachel Levy (July, 2005 - June, 2007)  
• Anne Catlla (2005 - 2008)  
• Anand Jayaraman (September 1, 2004 - August 15, 2005)  
• Sandra Wieland (January 1, 2004 - December, 2004)  
• Linda Smolka (April 8, 2002 - July 1, 2004)  
• Karl Glasner (2001/12-2002/05)  
• Mark Bowen (2000/03-2001/12)  

Undergraduate Research Supervised

• Veronica Ciocanel (May, 2010 - present)
  2012 Faculty Scholar, Honorable mention 
• Jeremy Semko (May, 2009 - May, 2010)
  Thesis: Statistical Analysis of Simulations of Coarsening Droplets Coating a Hydrophobic Surface 
• Lingren Zhang (July, 2006 - September, 2006)
  Thesis: The Motion of Sets of Vortices
  Undergraduate summer research 
• Qinzheng Tian (July, 2005 - September, 2005)
  Thesis: Simulation of Newtonian fluid fluid between rotating cylinders
  Undergraduate summer research 

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. C. Breward, E. Aydemir, T.P. Witelski, The effect of polar lipids on tear film dynamics, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, vol. 73 (2011), pp. 1171-1201 [doi]
2. A.J.Bernoff and T.P. Witelski, Stability and dynamics of self-similarity in evolution equations, Journal of Engineering Mathematics, vol. 66 no. 1-3 (March, 2010), pp. 11-31, ISSN 1573-2703 [s10665-009-9309-8]
3. T.P. Witelski, The subtle art of blowing bubbles (News and Views: Fluid Dynamics), Nature Physics, vol. 5 (May, 2009), pp. 315-316 (doi:10.1038/nphys1265.) [=NDgyMTgzMzQS1&mt=1&rt=0]
4. H.-J. Hwang and T.P. Witelski, Short-time Pattern formation in thin film equations, Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems A, vol. 23 no. 3 (March, 2009), pp. 867-885, ISSN 1078-0947 (doi: 10.3934/dcds.2009.23.867.) [displayArticles.jsp]
5. M. B. Gratton and T.P. Witelski, Transient and self-similar dynamics in thin film coarsening, Physica D, vol. 238 no. 23-24 (2009), pp. 2380-2394 [015]