Welcome!
We’re the Computational Physics Group at Georgia Tech. We build numerical methods, computational models, and open-source software for problems in defense, energy, and medicine — optimized for the world’s largest supercomputers.
Some of our research areas:
- Exascale CFD and multiphase flow
- Numerical methods for shock-laden and compressible flows
- Reacting flows and combustion
- Cavitation, microfluidics, and soft material characterization
Recent highlight: In August 2025 we conducted the largest-ever CFD simulation (1 quadrillion DOFs) on OLCF Frontier and LLNL El Capitan — a 2025 Gordon Bell Prize finalist.
Check out our papers to learn more.
Thinking about joining the group?
We’re always looking for new Ph.D. and undergraduate students who like building models, algorithms, and software.
- Strong coding + numerics background is a plus
- Projects span exascale CFD, cavitation, microfluidics, and more
👉 Visit the Vacancies page for detailed instructions.
What strong applicants usually have: Experience with C/C++/Fortran, numerical methods, and HPC. Familiarity with CFD, continuum mechanics, or scientific computing is helpful but not required.
Examples of our work
Exascale multiphase flow: Scale-resolving simulation of a multi-rocket-booster configuration via MFC and information geometric regularization (IGR), developed with Florian Schäfer. Record-setting at 1 quadrillion DOFs (200T grid points) on OLCF Frontier (viz. via Ph.D. student Ben Wilfong).
Interested in using MFC?
MFC is our flagship open-source solver for compressible multiphase flow at exascale.
• GPU-optimized for AMD and NVIDIA
• Validated on rocket, cavitation, and bubbly-flow problems
• Actively maintained and used on OLCF Frontier and LLNL El Capitan
👉 Visit the MFC website or the GitHub repo to get started.
Many of the techniques used in our record-setting rocket simulations are available in MFC, so external users can reproduce similar workflows on their own clusters.
Cell-scale flow in microfluidics: High-fidelity spectral boundary integral simulation of blood cells transitioning to chaos. We developed stochastic models enabling microfluidic device design and improved treatment outcomes. Above: a microaneurysm (viz. via student Suzan Manasreh).
News
March 4, 2026
Spencer is presenting Compressible Flow with a Free Lunch: Simulating 1 Quadrillion Degrees of Freedom Via Regularization Without Loss of Accuracy at SIAM PP26 this week in Berlin, Germany.
February 20, 2026
The group receives a DOE INCITE award of 750K node hours on OLCF Frontier for the project Exascale-enabled Simulation of Cavitation for Medicine and Beyond. PI Bryngelson, co-PIs T. Colonius, M. Rodriguez, F. Liu, and R. Budiardja.
February 19, 2026
Spencer is giving a talk at the RAeS Aerodynamics Workshop 2026 in London on soft material characterization at high strain rates and surrogate models for turbulence. Collaboration with UT Austin, Michigan, and Brown.
January 18, 2026
Our paper on MFC 5.0 (preprint here) was accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communications. Thanks to all the authors, collaborators, and referees!
January 8, 2026
Our AIAA SCITECH ‘26 conference paper, focusing on symbolic computational abstraction of chemistry libraries is now available online. Work with Ph.D. student Dimitrios Adam and UTSI faculty Esteban Cisneros-Garibay. We will be presenting it during the SCITECH forum next week, Jan 12-16, 2026.
December 22, 2025
A new group preprint by graduate student Haocheng Yu and postdoc Tianyi Chu, Energy dissipation mechanisms in an acoustically-driven slit, is available on arXiv. Using DNS and spectral POD, we quantify how incident acoustic energy is converted into vortical motion and viscous dissipation, identifying the coherent structures and mechanisms that govern absorption.
December 11, 2025
Our paper on Pyrometheus, which provides symbolic abstractions for XPU and automatic differention of thermochemistry/combustion was accepted and available at Computer Physics Communications. Collaboration with Prof. Esteban Cisneros-Garibay at UTSI, group Ph.D. student Dimitrios Adam, and group alumni Henry Le Berre.
December 4, 2025
Georgia Tech runs a story on our rocket simulations, as discussed heretofore. This is closely related to the ACM 2025 Gordon Bell Finalist work with former GT faculty, new at the Courant Institute, Prof. Florian Schäfer.
November 26, 2025
Our group collaborated with Diego Vaca-Revelo and Aswin Gnanaskandan of WPI on the hardware acceleration of bubbly flow models in Navier-Stokes solvers, demonstrated in MFC. The preprint is available here.
November 24, 2025
Our group, along with collaborators at UT-Austin, Michigan, and Brown, have pushed a preprint on Bayesian model selection for soft materials at very high strain rates. It’s available here!
