Shima Parsa
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Shima Parsa is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Applied Physics at Harvard University. She received her B.Sc. in Applied Physics from Iran University of Science and Technology and her M.Sc. in Physics from Tabriz University modeling the transport of electrons in high electron mobility transistors. She received her PhD in Physics from Wesleyan University, where she studied the dynamics of anisotropic particles in turbulence. She developed new experimental techniques to fully investigate the rotational dynamics of particles at high Reynolds number with applications in dynamics of ice crystals in clouds and alignment of fibers in pulp and paper industry.

At the Harvard MRSEC, Shima studies the dynamics of two-phase flow in porous media with application in enhanced oil recovery. She has developed experimental procedure to mimic reservoir recovery in lab at small scales with the ability to do full dynamic measurement using optical microscopy. One of the major topics of her research in IRG 1 is polymer enhanced oil recovery, where she focuses on the effects of polymer on pore level behavior of two phase flow. Shima has presented her work at numerous MRSEC IRG meetings and given soundbites at many of the New England Complex Fluids workshops. Most recently Shima mentored Kayla Keepseagle from Montana State University (Above: Shima [left], and Kayla [right]) during her 2017 summer REU project. Kayla has been accepted as an incoming graduate student at Harvard for the fall 2018 semester.