Vanessa Egan is a CONNECT Funded Investigator at the University of Limerick where she is a lecturer in mechanical engineering and a member of Stokes Laboratories in the Bernal Institute.

Dr Egan’s expertise and research are in experimental heat transfer and fluid dynamics. Her research focuses on characterising droplet microfluidic flows to develop systems incorporating this type of flow regime. Existing projects aim to develop thermal management solutions employing liquid cooling and phase change for the successful integration of 5G networking technologies. Dr. Egan is interested in understanding the engineering of these flows in order to design devices where continuous steady droplet trains are produced and manipulated.

Previous research projects include transport phenomena in two phase and immiscible liquid flows for enhanced heat transfer, aircraft compartment heat transfer and thermal management for low profile cooling applications. The impact of her research is in the development of fluidic systems through the characterisation of flow regimes so that devices can function as designed for applications varying from liquid cooling to nanoparticle synthesis, drug delivery and cell encapsulation. She has published over 60 peer reviewed papers in her specialist areas and collaborated with leading academics in the UK, USA and Canada.