Mathematical and Computational Modeling of Microorganism Swimming Motions

Microscopic swimmers like bacteria and spermatozoa live in highly viscous
environments. Their locomotion and the fluid flows they generate around
them have been actively investigated for the last 60 years motivated by
questions about effective locomotion strategies, the organism’s
interaction with the surrounding environment, patterns of collective
motion, propulsion, and more. These issues are typically addressed through
a combination of theory, experiments, mathematical modeling and
simulation. I will describe mathematical ideas that led to the method of
regularized Stokeslets, a computational technique based on fundamental
solutions of PDEs designed for simulating viscous flows generated by
external forcing. I will show several applications, including work done
with undergraduate students, that sheds light on these biological systems
and challenges ahead.

This talk is intended to be accessible to graduate students.