Research Areas:
Chemically Reactive Flows, Turbulence, Numerical Analysis, High-performance Computing and Parallel Architectures, Shocks and Shock Interactions, Rarefied Gases, and Microfluidics

Prof. Elaine Oran received her MPhil in Physics and PhD in Engineering and Applied Science at Yale University. She joined the University of Maryland in 2013 as Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, and has been TEES Eminent Professor and subsequently O'Donnell Foundation Chair VI of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University since May 2019. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan and a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds. Before joining the University of Maryland, she was the Senior Scientist for Reactive Flow Physics at the US Naval Research Laboratory and was responsible for carrying out theoretical and computational research on the fluid and molecular properties of complex dynamic systems.

Prof. Oran's recent research interests include combustion and propulsion, rarefied gases and microfluidics, fluid turbulence, materials engineering, high-performance computing and parallel architectures, computational science and numerical analysis, biophysical fluid dynamics, wave equations, and astrophysical phenomena such as supernova explosions and jets. She is author of over 300 refereed journal articles as well as many conference papers and presentations. She is also the co-author of the book Numerical Simulation of Reactive Flow.

Prof. Oran is a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was awarded the Propellants and Combustion Award from AIAA in 2008 and the Fluid Dynamics Prize from APS in 2013.