Dr. Christov received his Ph.D. in
Engineering Sciences & Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University in 2011. Subsequently, he was awarded a highly selective NSF
Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and spent two years with the
Complex Fluids Group at Princeton University. In 2013, Dr. Christov was selected as the Richard P. Feynman Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in Theory and Computing at the
Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 2016, he became an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, being promoted to Associate Professor (with tenure) in 2022 and to Full Professor in 2026. His leadership and contributions to society were recognized by a
Fulbright U.S. Scholar for the 2022–2023 academic year, as well as his selection as the Faculty Chair of Purdue's
Computational Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in 2026. At Purdue, Dr. Christov directs the
Transport: Modeling, Numerics & Theory laboratory, where advanced mathematics is combined with state-of-the-art simulations to understand coupled multiphysics problems involving viscous flows, elastic structures, and external fields. In 2017, Dr. Christov was named a Doctoral New Investigator by the American Chemical Society’s
Petroleum Research Fund. His research has also been continuously supported by the
National Science Foundation.
Impact:
Dr. Christov’s detailed mathematical analyses of complex engineering flow problems have yielded new
predictive theories and rationalized
poorly understood experiments across several areas of science and engineering, ranging from
rheology,
thermal transport, and
mixing in complex fluids, to
microscale fluid–structure interactions, to
interfacial instabilities, and
nonlinear mechanical waves. He was recognized with the 2026
Discovery in Mechanical Engineering Award for pioneering work on
non-Newtonian soft hydraulics. Dr. Christov publishes and disseminates his work widely:
102 journal articles (66 while at Purdue). His works have made a significant impact on the scientific community, as demonstrated by their rate of citation (see
Google Scholar). In 2020, Dr. Christov was recognized by the American Physical Society as an
Outstanding Referee (a lifetime achievement award), becoming only the fifth Purdue faculty to ever receive this honor. Dr. Christov's impact as a teacher-scholar is also evidenced by the success of his
mentees and group
alumni, who nominated him for the Outstanding Faculty Mentor of Engineering Graduate Students in Mechanical Engineering award for which he was
selected in 2021. In addition to being named to the College of Engineering's "Outstanding Engineering Teachers" list multiple times, Dr. Christov's excellence in classroom instruction earned him the School of Mechanical Engineering's
Graduate Teaching Award in 2022.
