Experience and skills

1. Bhaswati Choudhury
bhaswatic@ufl.edu ▪ 3800 SW 34th Street #293 Gainesville FL 32608 ▪ (352)-363-0101 ▪ www.linkedin.com/in/BhaswatiC
Profile summary
▪ Research experience through study of plasma reactors for flow control, ozone distribution and disinfection.
▪ Proficient in plasma reactor fabrication, circuit dev, thermal/fluid sciences, plasma physics, flow viz (PIV), FEA & CFD.
▪ Published in Nature journal (Scientific Reports) and conferences (AIAA, APS, ASME).
▪ Awarded best dissertation award by the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dept. at University of Florida.
Education
Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL (GPA 3.6/4) May 2020
M.S., Mechanical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL (GPA 3.5/4) Dec 2016
B.S., Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India (GPA 8/10) May 2014
Skills
Experimental skills: Photolithography, Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Circuit soldering, Fourier Analysis, FEA, CFD.
Software/languages: ANSYS (Fluent), SolidWorks, MATLAB, Fortran, LabView, C, C++.
Experience
University of Florida (UF), Gainesville, Florida
Graduate Research Assistant | Applied Physics Research Group (APRG) Aug 2015-Present
▪ Evaluated plasma reactor performance for flow control and disinfection. [ANSYS, MATLAB, FEA, CFD, PIV]
▪ Fabricated configurations of surface dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reactors. [Photolithography]
▪ Built low power, compact circuits based on in-house circuit design to operate the reactors. [SolidWorks, Soldering]
▪ Managed lab equipment; prepared funding proposals; mentored undergraduate students.
Graduate Teaching Assistant | Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Jan 2015-Present
▪ Designed and instructed lectures on ‘Thermodynamics’.
▪ Demonstrated experiments in the ‘Thermo-heat and Fluids lab’ [turbomachinery, heat ex, pipe flow, cooling tower]
Instructor | Center for Precollegiate Education & Training May 2018-Aug 2018
▪ Delivered seminars on research methods, Fourier Transform and PIV.
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
Research Intern | Multiphase Flow, Combustion and Laser Diagnostic Lab
▪ Characterized transition of recirculation structures in a swirling coaxial jet. [PIV, MATLAB] May 2013-Aug 2013
▪ Computed size, velocity and generation frequency of bubbles in the evaporator. [MATLAB] May 2012-Aug 2012
Published Projects | APRG | UF
Low power, compact, atmospheric surface DBD plasma reactor for water disinfection (Experimental):
▪ Engineered low power, compact ozone-based water disinfection system.
▪ Achieved 5 log reduction in <5 mins with 68.6 g/KWh ozone yield and 2.2 W avg reactor power consumption.
▪ Published results in Scientific Reports, Nature.
Performance evaluation of flow and ozone distribution with plasma reactor configurations (Computational):
▪ Implemented and validated 3D flow simulation with species (O2, N2, O3) in ANSYS using parallel computation (MPI).
▪ Incorporated plasma force models for reactor configurations with species reactions using user defined functions in C.
▪ Published results in American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2020 Scitech Forum and exposition.
Flow control and ozone distribution for disinfection with a novel plasma reactor design (Experimental):
▪ Established enhanced spatiotemporal ozone distribution (~70%) compared to comb reactor design.
▪ Obtained plasma reactor generated flow fields, ozone distribution and distribution in disinfection.
▪ Published results in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics.
Surface plasma deactivation of Legionella infected multi-organism biofilms (Experimental):
▪ Achieved total 6 log reduction in Legionella infected biofilms within 5 mins at 35 V input DC voltage.
▪ Tested various dielectric materials for effective installation of surface DBD plasma reactors in water pipes.
▪ Published results in Emerging Pathogens Institute Research Day, University of Florida.
Affiliations
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Society of Women Engineers (SWE-UF), Computer Society of
India (CSI-NITK), Semiconductor Career Readiness Organization (SCRO-UF), APRG-UF.

2. Other Projects | APRG and Coursework | UF
Surface DBD Plasma reactors to increase aerodynamic performance of airfoils (Experimental):
▪ Fabricated and tested different reactor configurations for flow control in an airfoil.
Study of MnO2 coated wire plasma reactors for ozone mitigation (Experimental):
▪ Observed 80%, 36% and 9% reduction in ozone levels, generated force and resulting velocities.
▪ Established that MnO2 coated wires reduce ozone levels at the cost of reduced velocities.
Numerical study of inviscid instability of a laminar jet profile to sinuous and varicose modes (Advanced CFD):
▪ Obtained growth rate and frequency of the two modes as a function of the streamwise wave number in MATLAB.
Numerical study of a 2D driven cavity problem in a square cavity (Advanced CFD):
▪ Solved and verified 2D incompressible Navier Stokes equations using the time splitting approach in MATLAB.
Solution of Poisson equation using OpenMP, MPI and GPGPU programming (High Performance Computing):
▪ Solved and verified Poisson equation using Jacobi in Fortran and C with OpenMP, MPI and GPGPU programming.
Presentations, Proceedings and Papers
▪ Bhaswati Choudhury, Sherlie E. Portugal, Judith A. Johnson, Subrata Roy (2018). “Inactivation of Pseudomonas
aeruginosa and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in an open water system with ozone generated by a
compact, atmospheric DBD plasma reactor.” Nature (Scientific reports), 8(1), p.17573.
▪ Bhaswati Choudhury, Sherlie E. Portugal, Judith A. Johnson, Subrata Roy (2020). “Performance evaluation of fan and
comb shaped plasma reactors for distribution of generated ozone in a confined space.” American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics 2020 Scitech Forum and exposition. Session: PDL-08, Plasma Actuators I.
▪ Bhaswati Choudhury (2020). “Ozone Generation and Distribution using Surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge (SDBD)
Flow Actuation for Enhanced Decontamination in Air and Water”, PhD Dissertation, Univ. of Florida.
▪ Sherlie E. Portugal, Bhaswati Choudhury, Subrata Roy (2020). Fan plasma reactor design for flow control and
enhancement of ozone distribution. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 53, no. 22 (2020): 22LT01.
▪ R. Santhosh, Bhaswati Choudhury, Ankur Miglani, Saptarshi Basu (2013). Near-field flow characterization of isothermal
coaxial swirling jet. DFD13 Annual Meeting of The American Physical Society. Session M14.
▪ R. Santhosh, Bhaswati Choudhury, Ankur Miglani, Saptarshi Basu (2013). Further Characterization of Transition of
Recirculation Structures in Isothermal Swirling Coaxial Jet. ISHMT-ASME Heat and Mass Transfer Conference
proceedings (HMTC1300231).
▪ Bhaswati Choudhury, Sherlie E. Portugal, Judith A. Johnson, Subrata Roy (2018). “DBD Surface Plasma Deactivation
of Multi-Organism Biofilms with Legionella.” Emerging Pathogens Institute Research Day, University of Florida.
Academic Achievements
▪ MAE Best Dissertation Award by the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at UF (2020).
▪ Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering Achievement Award for New Graduate students at UF (2014).
▪ Undergraduate Research Programme Fellowship Award by University of Southern California in the Dept. of Mechanical
Engineering at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (2013).
Voluntary work
▪ Helped school students with science fair projects for the P.K. Yonge Science Olympiad as a part of SWE-UF. (2018)
▪ Mentored undergraduate researcher as a part of the UF outreach program: SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research at
Florida). (2017)
▪ Instructed lectures as a part of the UF outreach program: SSTP (Student Science Training program). (2018)
Extracurricular
▪ Member of Gator Chess Club, 2017-present.
▪ Member of Music Club-NITK, 2010-2014
▪ Recipient of the “Cultural Talent Search Scholarship” - a National scholarship in Hindustani Music (instrumental-violin),
from the Centre for Cultural Researches and Training New Delhi, 2004-2007
▪ Bachelors in Indian classical music (Visharad) in Violin from Bhatkhande Sangit Vidyapith, Lucknow in 2004