John Dabiri

Early life and education

Born in 1980, Dabiri was raised in Toledo, Ohio, by Nigerian immigrant parents. During his childhood, Dabiri was exposed to engineering concepts through his father's technical work. He attended a Baptist high school where he received his high school diploma.

Dabiri graduated from Princeton University in 2001 with a B.S.E. degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. He then went to Caltech for graduate studies, graduating with a Master of Science degree in Aeronautics in 2003, a Ph.D. in Bioengineering, and a minor in Aeronautics in 2005.

Career

From 2005 to 2009, Dabiri worked as an assistant professor at Caltech in aeronautics and biological engineering. He was promoted to full professor in 2010. From 2013 to 2014, he served as chair of the Faculty Board. During the following school year, he was the Dean of Undergraduate Students. In 2015, Dabiri went to Stanford University to become a professor in civil, environmental, and mechanical engineering. He was a senior fellow in Stanford's Center for Turbulence Research and founding director of the Catalyst for Collaborative Solutions initiative. In 2019, he returned to Caltech as the Centennial Chair Professor in aeronautics and mechanical engineering. Dabiri served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) from 2021 to January 2025.

Dabiri serves on the Board of Directors of NVIDIA Corporation, the Board of Trustees of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the United States Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB), and as an advisor to X at Alphabet Inc. (formerly Google X). Additionally, he was the chair of the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics, and a member of the National Academies' Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. He served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics in 2016 and the Journal of the Royal Society Interface in 2014-2023. He was Co-Chairman of the U.S. National Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNC/TAM) in 2015-2018, and was a plenary lecturer at the 2022 USNC/TAM congress.

Research

During his first tenure at Caltech, Dabiri was the director of the Biological Propulsion Laboratory. The lab's research examined projects as: fluid transport applications in aquatic locomotion, fluid dynamic energy conversion, and blood flow as well as theoretical methods in fluid dynamics and concepts of optimal vortex formation. He established the Caltech Field Laboratory for Optimized Wind Energy (FLOWE) in 2011, a wind farm that investigates energy exchange in an array of vertical-axis wind turbines. To further develop digital particle image velocimetry measurements of propulsion in aquatic animals, Dabiri and his student K. Katija designed and patented a device to measure the kinetic energy induced by swimming.

Noting constructive interference in the hydrodynamic wakes of schooling fish, his research suggested that extracting energy from flow vortices could aid more than locomotion. The design of an array of vertical-axis turbines was reported to increase power output per unit land area by more than an order of magnitude compared with horizontal-axis wind farms. Dabiri partnered with Windspire Energy for the use of three of the twenty-four turbines that stand approximately 30 feet tall and 4 feet wide. He founded Scalable Wind Solutions to commercialize software used to optimize wind turbine placement. Further research on wind farm design has been led by alumni of his lab working in both academia and industry. Dabiri's research on jellyfish swimming led to the U.S. Navy funding development of an underwater craft that propels itself using up to 30% less energy than conventionally propelled craft.

After returning to Caltech, Dabiri’s research has focused on the hydrodynamics of electromechanically modified jellyfish, which he envisions for use in ocean exploration. Dabiri and colleagues have reported experiments using low-power microelectronics embedded in live jellyfish to alter propulsion and swimming behavior. An additional area of research in Dabiri’s lab focuses on the physics of turbulence transition. His recent work is exploring the role of the fluid-solid interface in theoretical predictions of turbulence transition.

Teaching

Dabiri was named Professor of the Month at Caltech in February 2012. He has taught classes including a graduate class on propulsion, a biomechanics course, a lab class on experimental methods in aeronautics and applied physics, and the introduction to fluid mechanics course.

His interest in motivating students considering STEM fields was recounted in an NPR interview:

"Having two parents who encouraged me and, in some cases, forced me to study and to really take academics seriously was very important at an early stage. And then going through school, the role of my teachers was always so important. I remember my fourth-grade teacher ... [she] made me believe that I was smart and so I took that and sort of owned that and tried to live up to the expectations that she had placed on me, even as a fourth grader. And so we really want to grab hold of the imagination of the first graders and the second graders at a very early stage, and get them wondering about becoming scientists, as focused as they are about becoming a firefighter or the next rap star."

Honors and awards

Dabiri's early honors include a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers,

In 2010 Dabiri was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his theoretical engineering work. That same year, he gave the Convocation Address at Caltech.

Bloomberg Businessweek magazine listed him among its 2012 Technology Innovators.

Dabiri was awarded the 2020 Alan T. Waterman Award from NSF. In 2023, he was awarded the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award for aquatic sciences.

He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Dabiri received the National Medal of Science (2024), presented at a White House ceremony on January 3, 2025.

In January 2025, Dabiri was awarded the National Medal of Science, the United States’ highest scientific honor, “for outstanding achievements in aeronautical and biological engineering” that have led to clean energy technologies and sustainable engineering.

Film consulting

In 2021, Dabiri served as a scientific consultant for Jordan Peele's science fiction film Nope. His role included advising on the design of the alien featured in the film, taking inspiration from the biology of marine invertebrates such as jellyfish and squid. The goal of the collaboration was to create an aerial predator with the ability to hide in the clouds (hence the scientific name of the fictional race: occulonimbus edoequus), generate electric fields, and use electric propulsion.

References

Notable publications

References

1. [http://dabirilab.com/dabiri Dabiri Lab]. ''John Dabiri''. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
2. "Stanford FPCE : People - John Dabiri".
3. "John O. Dabiri - Division of Engineering and Applied Science".
4. [http://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/CaltechNews/articles/v41/jellies.html Caltech PR]. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
5. [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130377714 NPR]. California Biophysicist Named MacArthur Fellow. 6 October 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
6. efosataiwo@vanguardngr.com. (2024-10-25). "Meet John Dabiri, Nigerian aeronautics engineer who became a professor at 25".
7. [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/usaafricadialogue/ifL3k_jVHfg USA Africa Dialogue]. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
8. efosataiwo@vanguardngr.com. (2024-10-25). "Meet John Dabiri, Nigerian aeronautics engineer who became a professor at 25".
9. "John O. Dabiri, PhD".
10. "Princeton MAE alumnus honored with National Medal of Science {{!}} Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering".
11. "John O. Dabiri's Profile {{!}} Stanford Profiles".
12. [http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jodabiri/jodabiri_cv.pdf John Dabiri Curriculum Vitae]
13. (22 September 2021). "President Biden Announces Members of President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology".
14. "About NVIDIA".
15. (2025-01-07). "John Dabiri Awarded National Medal of Science".
16. (2021-10-15). "Dabiri Appointed to Secretary of Energy Advisory Board".
17. "John O. Dabiri, PhD Profile Page {{!}} XPRIZE Foundation".
18. "2022 Newsletter of the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical & Applied Mechanics (USNC/TAM)".
19. [http://dabiri.caltech.edu Biological Propulsion Laboratory] {{Webarchive. link. (2011-09-03 . See the ''People'' page. Retrieved 23 July 2012.)
20. [http://dabiri.caltech.edu/research/wind-energy.html Caltech Field Laboratory for Optimized Wind Energy] {{Webarchive. link. (2010-05-22 . Includes list of relevant publications. Retrieved 23 July 2012.)
21. "Self-contained underwater velocimetry apparatus".
22. [http://dabiri.caltech.edu/publications/KaDa_LOM08.pdf] {{Webarchive. link. (2010-06-01 Self-Contained Underwater Velocimetry Apparatus (SCUVA). Limnology and Oceanography: Methods. 2008. Retrieved 23 July 2012.)
23. [http://dabiri.caltech.edu/publications/Da_BB07.pdf] {{Webarchive. link. (2010-12-23 Renewable fluid dynamic energy derived from aquatic animal locomotion. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. [[Institute of Physics). IOPScience]]. Published 10 September 2007. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
24. [http://dabiri.caltech.edu/publications/WhLiDa_BB10.pdf] {{Webarchive. link. (2011-09-04 Whittlesey, R.W., Liska, S., Dabiri, J.O. Fish schooling as a basis for vertical axis wind turbine farm design. BIOINSPIRATION & BIOMIMETICS. [[Institute of Physics). IOPScience]]. Published 20 August 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
25. (2010-05-17). "Schooling Fish Offer New Ideas for Wind Farming".
26. [http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2009/10/21/pages/6671/ Jellyfish engineer]. [[Princeton University. Princeton]] Alumni Weekly. Published 21 October 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
27. Simon R Anuszczyk and John O Dabiri, [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-3190/ad277f Electromechanical enhancement of live jellyfish for ocean exploration], 2024 Bioinspir. Biomim. 19 026018
28. John O. Dabiri, [https://www.americanscientist.org/article/do-swimming-animals-mix-the-ocean Do Swimming Animals Mix the Ocean?], American Scientist, July–August 2024, vol. 112, no. 4, p. 222.
29. Nicole W. Xu and John O. Dabiri, [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz3194 Low-power microelectronics embedded in live jellyfish enhance propulsion], ''Science Advances'' (2020).
30. John O. Dabiri and Anthony Leonard, [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.14853 Linear instability of viscous parallel shear flows: Revisiting the perturbation no-slip condition], arXiv:2308.14853
31. [http://tech.caltech.edu/?p=3395 Prof of the Month]. Filed 27 February 2012. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
32. (November 2024)
33. link. (2012-03-08 . ''[[Popular Science]]''. Posted 15 October 2008. Retrieved 19 Jan 2018.)
34. [http://www.macfound.org/fellows/30/ MacArthur Foundation]. ''John Dabiri''. 25 January 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
35. [http://today.caltech.edu/today/story-display?story_id=46525 Caltech Today]. 9 September 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
36. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120407070044/http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-05/john-dabiri-unlocks-the-mysteries-of-jellyfish John Dabiri Unlocks the Mysteries of Jellyfish]. Published 05 April 2012. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
37. (5 August 2020). "NSF recognizes innovative science of chemist and aeronautical engineer as 2020 Waterman awardees".
38. (30 March 2023). "2023 Hutchinson Award Recipient".
39. "John O. Dabiri".
40. "Princeton MAE alumnus honored with National Medal of Science {{!}} Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering".
41. Weekes, Princess. (July 25, 2022). "What Does the Gordy Subplot Mean in Jordan Peel[e]'s {{'}}''Nope''{{'}}?".
42. Stefansky, Emma. (July 25, 2022). "Inside the Eerie UFO Design for Jordan Peele's 'Nope'".
43. Egan, Toussaint. (July 25, 2022). "The inspirations behind the monster in ''Nope''".
44. Adlakha, Siddhant. (July 20, 2022). "IGN: ''Nope'' Review".