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Faculty Profile

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323 Thurston
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853

Phone: 607/255-5354

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Z. Jane Wang

Associate Professor

B.S. 1989 (Fudan, P.R.C.)

Ph.D. 1996 (Chicago)

Professional Biography

Wang received her doctorate in Physics from University of Chicago in 1996. She was a NSF-NATO postdoctoral fellow in theoretical physics at University of Oxford in 1996-1997 and a visiting member at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in 1997-1999, before joining the Cornell faculty in 1999. She is a member of the American Physical Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. She is a recipient of a NSF Early Career Award, an ONR Young Investigator Award, and a David and Lucille Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering.

Research Interests

My research aims to identify, investigate, and discover new phenomena in a broad range of physical and biological systems. One of my current interest is understanding the intricacies of unsteady aerodynamics through insect flight and falling leaves.

Other themes of my research include turbulence, computational fluid dynamics, localization in disordered systems, and general spectral theory of non-Hermitian random matrices and its application to advection-diffusion systems.

Our choice of investigative tools are primarily dictated by the nature of the problems. They can be combination of large scale computation, table top experiments, data analysis, scaling analysis, and analytic perturbative techniques. In addition, we often resort to our experimental colleagues for insights into the "real world''.

Selected Publications

  • Z. Jane Wang and David Russell, Effect of Forewing and Hindwing Interactions on Aerodynamic Forces and Power in Hovering Dragonfly Flight, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99.14, 148101 (2007) [PDF]
  • A. J. Bergou, S. Xu, and Z. J. Wang, Passive wing pitch reversal in insect flight, J. Fluid Mech. 591, 321-337 (2007) [PDF]
  • G. Berman, and Z. J. Wang, Energy-minimizing kinematics in hovering insect flight, J. Fluid Mech. 582, 153-168 (2007) [PDF]
  • Sheng Xu and Z. Jane Wang, An Immersed Interface Method for Simulating the Interaction of a Fluid with Moving Boundaries, J. Comp. Phys 201, 454-493 (2006) [PDF]
  • Sheng Xu and Z. Jane Wang, Systematic Derivation of Jump Conditions for the Immersed Interface Method in Three-dimensional Flow Simulation, SIAM J. Sci. Comp. 27.6, 1948-1980 (2006) [PDF]
  • A. Andersen, U. Pesavento, and Z. Jane Wang, Analysis of transitions between fluttering, tumbling and steady descent of falling cards, J. Fluid Mech. 541, 91-104 (2005) [PDF]
  • A. Andersen, U. Pesavento, and Z. Jane Wang, Unsteady aerodynamics of fluttering and tumbling plates J. Fluid Mech.541, 65-90 (2005) [PDF]
  • Z. Jane Wang, Dissecting Insect Flight, Annu.Rev. Fluid Mech. 2005.37, 183-210 (2005) [PDF]
  • David B. Russell, Numerical and Experimental Investigations into the Aerodynamics of Dragonfly Flight (2004)
  • Umberto Pesavento and Z. Jane Wang, Falling Paper: Navier-Stokes Solutions, Model of Fluid Forces, and Center of Mass Elevation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93.14, 144501 (2004) [PDF]
  • Z. Jane Wang, The role of drag in insect hovering, J. Expr. Bio. 207,4147-4155 (2004) [PDF]
  • Z. Jane Wang, James M. Birch, and Michael H. Dickinson, Unsteady forces and flows in low Reynolds number hovering flight: two-dimensional computations vs robotic wing experiments, J. Expr. Bio. 207,449-460 (2004) [PDF]
  • D.I. Pullin and Z. Jane Wang, Unsteady forces on an accelerating plate and application to hovering insect flight, J. Fluid Mech 509, 1-21 (2004) [PDF]
  • R.B. Bhiladvala and Z.J. Wang, Effect of fluids on the Q factors and resonance frequency of oscillating micrometer and nanometer scale beams, Phys. Rev. E 69, 036307 (2004) [PDF]
  • David Russell and Z. Jane Wang, A cartesian grid method for modeling multiple moving objects in 2D incompressible viscous flow, J. Comp. Phys. 191, 177-205 (2003) [PDF]
  • Z. Jane Wang, Unsteady Aerodynamics of Insect Flight, Computational Modeling in Biological Fluid Dynamics, IMA Volumes in Mathematics and its Applications, Springer 2001
  • Z. Jane Wang, Computations of Insect Hovering, Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences, Wiley, vol. 209 (2001)
  • John Chalker and Z. Jane Wang, Spectrum of the Fokker-Planck operator representing diffusion in a random velocity field, Phys. Rev. E, 61, 196 (2000) [PDF]
  • Z. Jane Wang, Two Dimensional Mechanism for Insect Hovering, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85.10, 2216-2219 (2000) [PDF]
  • Z. Jane Wang, Vortex shedding and frequency selection in flapping flight, J. Fluid Mech. 410, 323-341 (2000) [PDF]
  • Z. Jane Wang, J.G. Liu, and S. Childress, Connection between corner vortices and shear layer instability in flow past an ellipse, Phys. of Fluids 11.9, 2446-2448 (1999) [PDF]
  • Z. Jane Wang, Efficient Implementation of the Exact Numerical Far field Boundary Condition for Poisson Equation on an Infinite Domain, J. Comp. Phys. 153, 666 (1999) [PDF]
  • J. Eggers and Z. Jane Wang, Crossover behavior in turbulent velocity fluctuations, Phys. Rev. E 57.4, 4281-4288 (1998) [PDF]
  • S. Succi, Z. Jane Wang, and Y.H. Qian, Clustering Instability in Granular Gases, International Journal of Modern Physics C 8.4, 999 (1998)
  • J.T. Chalker and Z. Jane Wang, Diffusion in a Random Velocity Field: Spectral Properties of a Non-Hermitian Fokker-Planck Operator, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79.10, 1797-1800 (1997) [PDF]
  • Virginie Emsellem, Leo P. Kadanoff, Detlef Lohse, Patrick Tabeling, and Z. Jane Wang, Transitions and probes in turbulent helium, Phys. Rev. E 55.3, 2672-2681 (1997) [PDF]
  • Jonathan Miller and Jane Wang, Passive Scalars, Random Flux, and Chiral Phase Fluids, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76.9, 1461-1464 (1996) [PDF]
  • A. Sanchez, D. Cai, N. Cronbech-Jensen, A.B. Bishop, and Z. Wang, Roughening transitions of driven surface growth, Phys. Rev. B 14664 (1995)
  • Leo Kadanoff, Detlef Lohse, Jane Wang, and Roberto Benzi, Scaling and dissipation in the GOY shell model, Phys. of Fluids 7.3, 617-629 (1995) [PDF]
  • S. Chen, Z. Wang, G. Doolen, and X. Shan, Three Dimensional Lattice Bontzmann Computational Fluid Dynamics, J Stat. Phys. 68, 379 (1992)