ACS AMA Hi Reddit! My name is Neelesh A. Patankar, and I am the Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence and Associate Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University. Following my Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at University of Pennsylvania, I was a post-doctoral associate with Prof. Daniel D. Joseph at the University of Minnesota until 2000. I then joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University as an Assistant Professor in 2000, and have been a Professor since 2011. My research area is developing computational methods for immersed bodies in fluids and applying them to problems in biology (fish swimming, esophageal transport, rat whiskers) and engineering (vehicle aerodynamics). I have also been active in designing rough surfaces for non-wetting, super-wetting, anti-icing, and novel phase change properties. My group has published a series of papers on the thermodynamics of phase change on rough surfaces. Topics include keeping surfaces dry under water (see a short video here), restoring underwater superhydrophobicity, changing the boiling curve by extending or delaying the Leidenfrost regime, and the thermodynamics of sustaining vapor, “non-condensable” gases, and superheated liquids in roughness pores. I also recently acted as a scientific consultant for an ACS Reactions video on the Leidenfrost effect. The broader research vision is to engineer metasurfaces, that is surfaces that exhibit novel interfacial interactions during heterogeneous phase transition (e.g. condensation, boiling, freezing). Potential application areas include boiling and condensation heat transfer (e.g. in power plants), anti-icing, anti-fouling, and atmospheric water harvesting, among others. I will be answering your questions on the topics of rough surfaces for non-wetting, super-wetting, or novel phase change properties at 11am EDT (10am CDT, 8am PDT, 3pm UTC) -ACS edit text formatting 08:45 ET