Thermal Convection : Patterns, Evolution and Stability

Dr. Marcello Lappa is Senior Researcher at the Microgravity Advanced Research and Support Center. He has approximately 100 publications (the majority as a single author) in the fields of fluid motion and stability behavior (thermogravitational, thermocapillary, thermovibrational and magnetic convection), organic and inorganic materials sciences and crystal growth, multiphase flows, solidification, biotechnology and biomechanics, methods of numerical analysis in computational fluid dynamics and heat/mass transfer, high performance computing (parallel machines). He is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Fluid Dynamics and Materials Processing (ISSN 1555-256X). He has worked as a visiting scientist and professor at the Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering - Division of Advanced Device Materials in Japan (Kyushu University). Over recent years he has been involved in many industrial projects and, in particular, in the preparation of the ground and flight operations for the Fluid Science Laboratory (FSL) that will operate on-orbit within the Columbus Module of the International Space Station by the half of 2008.