Andrew P. Spann, Ph.D.

Principal

Dr. Andrew Spann is a Principal at Veryst Engineering.  Dr. Spann’s expertise uses high-performance computing to study complex physical systems, including biological systems such as vesicles, red blood cells, microfluidic devices, and platelets.  His work includes simulating coupled flow, deformation, and margination of cells and membrane structures.  He has extensive experience in the development and application of complex computational methods, including multiphysics.  Dr. Spann’s research activities have combined boundary integral simulations with computer graphics techniques such as Loop subdivision surfaces to enable the accurate representation of nonspherical vesicles and cells.

Prior to joining Veryst Engineering, Dr. Spann was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Nanomanufacturing Systems for Mobile Computing and Mobile Energy Technologies (NASCENT) NSF Engineering Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.  At NASCENT, Dr. Spann used parallel computing to develop simulations for informing the scale-up of roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography processes for large surface area patterning.  Dr. Spann has won awards for repeatedly placing in the top 10 papers of the international COMAP Mathematical Contest in Modeling as well as multiple finishes in the national top 10 rankings of the Microsoft College Puzzle Challenge.

Education 

Ph.D., Computational and Mathematical Engineering, Stanford University, 2013 

M.S., Computational and Mathematical Engineering, Stanford University, 2010

B.S., Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007

B.S., Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007

Publications 

"Viscosity Model for Liquid Mixtures of Propylene Glycol, Glycerol, and Water," Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 2021 60 (1), 670-677 (with M. J. Hancock, A. A. Rostami, S. P. Platt, M. J. Rusyniak, R. S. Sundar, R. W. Lau, and Y. B. Pithawalla).

"Fluid flow in UV nanoimprint lithography with patterned templates," Microelectronic Engineering, Vol. 173, pp. 62 –70, 2017 (with A. Jain, A. Cochrane, P.R.  Schunk, and R. T. Bonnecaze).

"Effect of droplet size, droplet placement, and gas dissolution on throughput and defect rate in UV Nanoimprint Lithography," Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B, Nanotechnology and Microelectronics: Materials, Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena, Vol. 35, pp. 011602, 2017 (with A. Jain and R.T. Bonnecaze).

"Solving the Interconnect Challenge: How to Bring Flexibility to Wearable Design," NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Administration) Tech Briefs, March 1, 2017 (with A. Hartzell).

"The effect of hematocrit on platelet adhesion: experiments and simulations," Biophysical Journal, Vol. 111, pp. 577-588, 2016 (with J. Campbell, S. Fitzgibbon, A. Rodriguez, A. Cap, L. Blackbourne, and E.S.G. Shaqfeh).

"Pearling, wrinkling, and buckling of vesicles in elongational flows," Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 777, pp. 1–26, 2015 (with V. Narsimhan, and E.S.G. Shaqfeh).

"In vitro measurement of particle margination in the micro-channel flow of blood: effect of varying hematocrit," Biophysical Journal, Vol. 108, pp. 2601–2608, 2015 (with S. Fitzgibbon, Q. Qi, and E.S.G. Shaqfeh).

"The mechanism of shape instability for a vesicle in extensional flow," Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 750, pp. 144–190, 2014 (with V. Narsimhan, and E.S.G. Shaqfeh). 

"Loop subdivision surface boundary integral method simulations of vesicles at low reduced volume ratio in shear and extensional flow," Physics of Fluids, Vol. 26, pp. 031902, 2014, (with H. Zhao and E.S.G. Shaqfeh).

"The dynamics of a vesicle in a wall-bound shear flow," Physics of Fluids, Vol. 23, pp. 121901, 2011, (with H. Zhao and E.S.G. Shaqfeh).

"Application of a two-dimensional model for predicting the pressure-flow and compression properties during column packing scale-up," Journal of Chromatography A, Vol. 1145, pp. 89–101, 2007 (with J.T. McCue, D. Cecchini, C. Chu, and W.H. Liu).

"Electoral redistricting with moment of inertia and diminishing halves models," UMAP Journal, Vol. 28, pp. 281–299, 2007 (with D. Kane, and D. Gulotta).

"Application of min-cost flow to airline accessibility services," UMAP Journal, Vol. 27, pp. 367–385, 2006 (with D. Gulotta and D. Kane).

"Lane changes and close following: troublesome tollbooth traffic," UMAP Journal, Vol. 26, pp. 317–330, 2005 (with D. Kane and D. Gulotta).

"Photodecomposition of Pigment Yellow 74, a pigment used in tattoo inks," Photochemistry and Photobiology, Vol. 80, pp. 175–184, 2004 (with Y. Cul, L.H. Couch, N.V. Gopee, F.E. Evans, M.I. Churchwell, L.D. Williams, D.R. Doerge, and P.C. Howard).

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