Sam Lewin

About Me

I’m a postdoc in the Mechanical Engineering Department at UC Berkeley, working with Prof. Alexis Kaminski. I am interested in understanding and modelling multiscale fluid flows in the environment. My work is guided by a combination of theory, observations and numerical simulations. I spend a lot of time thinking about the dynamics of stratified flows, including internal waves, shear flows, instabilities and turbulence. In the ocean, these features play a critical role in the transport and mixing of heat, salt, nutrients and carbon.

Previously, I was a PhD student in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. You can find a list of some of my research interests and some selected publications below. Or check out what I’m up to at the moment here.

Ask me about: cycling, music & music technology, comfort food, birds, wikipedia

Research Interests

• stratified and buoyancy-driven flows: shear layers, instabilities, internal gravity waves, gravity currents and turbulence
• ocean mixing: breaking internal waves, wave-mean flow interactions, diagnosing and parameterising mixing efficiency
• coastal ocean dynamics: shoaling nonlinear internal waves, river plumes, fronts and models of dissipation and mixing

Recent Updates

Watch our submission to the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics Gallery of Fluid Motion 2025 here:

Selected Publications

Last updated:

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