Civil Engineering Departmental Seminar - THE NEW PHYSICS OF FLUIDS

Dr. Giacomin is a retired Professor of Chemical Engineering, Mechanical and Materials Engineering and Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy at Queen’s University at Kingston in Canada where he holds the titles Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Physics of Fluids, and Adjunct Professor at University of Nevada, Reno in USA.  Born in Kingston, Professor Giacomin graduated high school on the island of Montreal.  He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University in Kingston, before joining the Research Division at DuPont Canada.  He then earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering from McGill University under Professor John Dealy, his thesis titled “A Sliding Plate Melt Rheometer Incorporating a Shear Stress Transducer.”  He joined the Mechanical Engineering faculty at Texas A&M University.  He has been Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, where for twenty years he chaired its Rheology Research Center.  He has held visiting professorships at McGill University, the University of Sherbrooke, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the Paris School of Mines, the National University of Singapore, Chung Yuan University near Taipei, Yunlin University, in southern Taiwan, and Shandong University i mainland China.  He married Marie, and they have a son David, and daughter, Caroline.  David is a civil engineer, and Caroline, a chemical engineer.  He speaks English, French and Mandarin Chinese.  His hobbies:  Chinese characters, expert witnessing for products liability and patent litigation, and his passions are cycling and ice hockey.  He is Past-President of the Canadian Society of Rheology, and a former President of The Society of Rheology.  Giacomin serves as sole Editor-in-Chief of Physics of Fluids.