SJSU researchers join $30M NSF Science and Technology Center to tackle turbulence

SAN JOSÉ, CA - San José State University researchers and students will have the opportunity to help tackle one of science's most difficult problems as part of a new $30 million National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center focused on understanding and predicting turbulence, with applications including fusion energy, astrophysics and hypersonic flight.

The Science and Technology Center for Transformative Explorations in Multi-Physics and Engineering of Scientific Turbulence (TEMPEST), led by Michigan State University, will bring together physicists, mathematicians, engineers, computer scientists and artificial intelligence researchers from institutions across the country. The center will combine theory, computation, experimentation, and AI to develop new ways to understand turbulence across the enormous range of spatial and temporal scales found in real-world systems.

San José State will contribute expertise in multiscale mathematical modeling, computational fluid dynamics and scientific machine learning, helping TEMPEST connect fundamental advances in turbulence science with predictive simulations of complex physical systems.

Liam Stanton, associate professor of applied mathematics in SJSU's Department of Mathematics and Statistics, will investigate multiscale transport and turbulent mixing in extreme physical environments, with a particular focus on fusion energy and high energy-density plasmas. Dr. Stanton develops mathematical and computational models that connect microscopic particle interactions, kinetic theory, and continuum-scale transport.

"Fusion experiments involve physics spanning an extraordinary range of scales," said Dr. Stanton. "Understanding how microscopic plasma interactions ultimately affect turbulent mixing and energy transport at much larger scales is a problem no single researcher or computational method can solve. TEMPEST gives us an opportunity to connect those scales by bringing experiments, mathematics, large-scale simulation, and AI together."

A major goal of this research will be to move from models that reproduce experiments after calibration toward models capable of predicting turbulent transport and mixing before an experiment is performed. Improved predictive capabilities could ultimately contribute to the computational tools used to design and interpret inertial and magneto-inertial fusion experiments.

Mike Wood, assistant professor with dual appointments in SJSU's Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and Department of Computer Science, will leverage his experience in computational fluid dynamics and high-performance computing to develop novel turbulence closures through machine learning and neural network techniques. Even today's most powerful computers cannot explicitly resolve every turbulent scale in complex flows, requiring simulations to approximate the effects of unresolved turbulence. Wood's research will explore how machine learning can use information from high-resolution simulations and data to construct improved representations of these unresolved processes.

"Turbulence is everywhere - from the oceans and atmosphere here on Earth to supernovae in space," said Dr. Wood. "What's exciting about TEMPEST is the opportunity to bring together researchers from across the country who study turbulence in very different physical systems. By combining these perspectives, we aim to uncover common principles that improve our ability to understand and predict turbulent flows across an extraordinary range of scales and applications."

These advances will contribute to TEMPEST's broader effort to understand non-canonical turbulence - turbulent systems in which extreme conditions, interactions across scales and multiple coupled physical processes challenge conventional modeling assumptions. The center will test new theories and computational methods in applications including fusion plasmas, astrophysical flows, and hypersonic aerospace environments.

"SJSU's participation demonstrates how our faculty can contribute distinctive expertise to national-scale scientific collaborations," said Shelley Cargill, Interim Dean of the College of Science. "Our researchers are developing mathematical and computational tools that connect fundamental science to some of the most challenging predictive problems in energy, astrophysics and engineering, while creating extraordinary research opportunities for our students."

"Participating in a center of this caliber represents a significant milestone for SJSU," said Crist Khachikian, vice president for Research and Innovation. "Science and Technology Centers are among the National Science Foundation's largest and most competitive investments, and our researchers have earned a place alongside colleagues from the nation's leading research universities. Sustained funding at this level elevates our entire research enterprise, and partnerships it fosters with national laboratories and other institutions strengthens our work well beyond the scope of this center."

SJSU students will participate directly in the center's research through interdisciplinary projects in applied mathematics, computational fluid dynamics, scientific computing, machine learning, and data science. Students will have opportunities to collaborate across TEMPEST institutions and connect university research with national laboratories, major scientific facilities, and other research partners.

TEMPEST will make research data and software broadly available and develop educational and public-engagement programs designed to help train an AI-fluent scientific workforce capable of working across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

In addition to Michigan State University and San José State University, TEMPEST will include researchers from Baylor University, Auburn University, the University of Rochester, Yale University, Texas A&M University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Unfunded partners include Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pacific Fusion, Sandia National Laboratories, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Through its participation in TEMPEST, SJSU will help address one of the central challenges of modern computational science: turning an incomplete view of enormously complex turbulent systems into trustworthy predictions. By combining physics-based multiscale modeling with machine learning, Stanton, Wood and their students will help develop new approaches for predicting turbulence in some of science and engineering's most extreme environments.