Dr Nikhil Desai PhD

• Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, 2014
• Master of Technology in Thermal Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, 2014
• PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, 2019

Nikhil is originally from India, where he completed his B.Tech. and M.Tech. (Dual Degree) in 2014, at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He majored in Mechanical Engineering with specialisation in Thermal Science and Engineering. He completed his PhD in 2019, in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University (USA). From 2020-2025, he did two post-docs: first in LadHyX, Ecole Polytechnique (France) and then in DAMTP, Cambridge (UK). In August 2025, Nikhil joined the School of Mathematics at the University of Birmingham as an Assistant Professor.

Nikhil Desai is interested in supervising PhD students in Continuum Mechanics (low Reynolds number flows, active matter hydrodynamics) and Mathematical Biology (biological fluid mechanics). If you are interested, please email him.

Nikhil's research interests are in applied mathematics and continuum mechanics, particularly in micro-hydrodynamics. He uses analytical and computational methods to study micron-scale fluid flows relevant to engineering, biology and medicine e.g., locomotion of microscopic entities, flow of mucus films, intracellular flows, drug transport.

Research themes

• Active matter hydrodynamics
• Biological and physiological fluid mechanics
• Micro-transport phenomena

Research activity

Nikhil's research focuses on theoretical and computational fluid mechanics, specifically low Reynolds number hydrodynamics in physico-chemical and biological systems.

In his PhD, advised by Professor Arezoo Ardekani, he developed mathematical models to explain the role played by fluid flow in helping bacteria colonise oil drops. He showed that, in addition to active nutrient-sensing called chemotaxis, bacteria benefit from a passive "hydrodynamic trapping" mechanism to populate nutrient sources like oil drops. He also offered hydrodynamics-based explanations for important experimentally observed swimming behaviour in bacteria, e.g., their motion near surfactant-laden interfaces and their varying affinity to surfaces based on their propulsion mechanisms. This research has applications in understanding the bioremediation of oil-spills by marine bacteria.

During his first post-doc, with Professor Sébastien Michelin, Nikhil studied the motion of chemical-reaction-driven "active" drops. In experiments, these drops are almost always confined near flat substrates, but theoretical understanding of their motion near boundaries was lacking. Nikhil performed numerical simulations to explain, for the first time, how confinement enhances the swimming speed of an active drop. For their work on confined propulsion of active drops, Dr Nikhil Desai and Professor Sébastien Michelin were awarded the 2022 Francois Frenkiel Award, by the American Physical Society, for significant contribution in fluid mechanics by early-career researchers. Nikhil is now interested in devising ways to control the motion of chemically active drops. This will help to exploit their ease of manufacturability toward performing useful microfluidic tasks.

During his second post-doc, with Professor Eric Lauga, Nikhil worked on modelling mucus transport in human maxillary sinuses. He developed a mathematical model that explained the physical mechanisms responsible for the maintenance of a thin mucus film inside healthy sinuses. He also studied intracellular fluid flow, using analytical calculations supported by numerical simulations to accurately quantify the strength of naturally occurring temperature-gradient-driven flows inside eukaryotic cells. Nikhil's current interests in biological and bio-medical fluid mechanics include utilising our knowledge of mucosal flows to enhance bioavailability of administered drugs.