Our team
Dr. Sharon Swartz
Dr. Swartz’s research aims to understand how the tissues of animal wings — bones, tendons, muscle, skin, and nerves —are modified for the mechanical and aerodynamics demands of flight in bats, and how bats and their wings originated and diversified during evolution. Favorite bat species: that’s a tough one. If narrowed down to two, an old favorite is Pteropus poliocephalus, the grey-headed flying fox, and a new favorite is Lasiurus cinereus, the hoary bat.
Brooke Quinn
Brooke is a PhD candidate at Brown University and has been working with bats since 2019. She researches sensory hairs on bats’ wings and how these structures influence their flight and maneuverability. Favorite bat species: Antrozous pallidus, the pallid bat.
Alberto Bortoni
Alberto is a PhD candidate at Brown University studying the pursuit strategies bats use to capture prey. Favorite bat species: Corynorhinus townsendii, Townsend’s big-eared bat.
Dr. Sakthi Swarrup
Sakthi Swarrup J. is a Fulbright Nehru Postdoctoral fellow at Brown University. Sakthi is interested in studying thin, flexible, and elastic bat inspired wings and understanding how they enable flight. She is also keen on employing strain sensors that can monitor the wing's flexibility and measure the aerodynamic forces it generates. Favotie bat species: the one, the only, Cynopterus brachyotis.
Dr. Aaron Corcoran
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Dr. Kenny Breuer
Xiaozhou Fan
Dr. Breuer has been working in the diverse field of fluid dynamics for many years, with his research ranging from the mechanics of animal flight to the formation of voritcal flows. Favorite bat species: Cynopterus brachyotis, his first love in the world of bat research.
Xiaozhou (read "Sh-howJoe") uses both computational and experimental tools to understand flapping wings, particularly bat flight.
Currently, he is building a three degrees of freedom flapping wing robot (wing flapping, twisting and folding) for next generation bio-inspired drones.