Crystal E. Owens

Crystal E. Owens is a PhD candidate whose research is focused on rheology and advancing our understanding of fluid-solid interactions to create useful new processes and tools. With the support of her second MathWorks Fellowship, Crystal will continue her work to develop rheological measurement tools for a class of non-Newtonian materials known as yield stress fluids. These materials include 3-D printing inks, biomaterials key for tissue engineering, and geofluids such as soil and lava; their physical properties make these materials extremely challenging to measure. Crystal’s research makes extensive use of MATLAB to select optimal tool geometries for real-world design and testing. She is currently working with multiple collaborators to characterize new flowable consumer products, such as ceramic slurries and delicate foams, and she has founded a small company, Rheo3D, to test commercial applications of her designs. At the same time, Crystal continues to leverage MATLAB to build new, open-source tools, such as a low-cost rheometer and a soft glassy rheology model for yield stress fluids, with the potential to advance research and education in rheology, and more broadly in materials science.