Pedram Hassanzadeh
Adjunct Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Hassanzadeh received his B.S. from the University of Tehran (2005), M.S. from the University of Waterloo (2007), and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (2013), all in Mechanical Engineering. He also holds a M.A. degree in Mathematics from UC Berkeley (2012). He was a Ziff Environmental Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment (2013-2015) and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard University Department of Earth and Planetary Science (2015-2016). Dr. Hassanzadeh was also a Research Associate at the University of Waterloo (2007-2008), GFD Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (2012), and Associate at Harvard University (2016). He joined the faculty at Rice in 2016.
Dr. Hassanzadeh’s honors and awards include a CAREER Award from National Science Foundation (NSF), Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Early-Career Research Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences Gulf Research Program, Ziff Environmental Fellowship from the Harvard University Center for the Environment, NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Outstanding Preliminary Examination Award and Jonathan Laitone Memorial Scholarship from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of UC Berkeley.
Research Areas
Dr. Hassanzadeh studies turbulent flows and chaotic dynamical systems in complex natural phenomena and engineering systems using numerical, mathematical, and deep learning methods, guided by observational and experimental data. His work is often motivated by theoretical and applied problems related to environment and energy. Examples of problems of interest are environmental and geophysical flows, extreme weather events (e.g., heat waves, hurricanes), reduced-order modeling, atmospheric turbulence, and climate modeling. His research has been supported by NASA, NSF, ONR, National Academy of Sciences, Schmidt Futures, Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab, Microsoft AI, Rice University Creative Ventures, and Rice Houston Engagement and Recovery Effort.
Education
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, University of Tehran (2005)
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, University of Waterloo, (2007)
M.A. in Mathematics, University of California-Berkeley (2012)
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, University of California-Berkeley (2013)
Teaching Areas
Fluid Dynamics
Honors & Awards
2021 CAREER Award, National Science Foundation (NSF)
2020 Young Investigator Award, Office of Naval Research (ONR)
2018 Early-Career Research Fellow, The National Academy of Sciences Gulf Research Program
2013 Ziff Environmental Fellow, Harvard University Center for the Environment
2012 Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Fellow, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
2009 NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship, Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada
