People who do the work.

Principal Investigator

Mustafa Usta, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering — Cleveland State University

Dr. Usta earned his B.S. from Yildiz Technical University (Turkey, 2012) and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Lehigh University (2016, 2018), all in mechanical engineering. He was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Faculty in Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology before joining Cleveland State University as an Assistant Professor in 2022. He has been an Affiliate Faculty in the Departments of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering since 2023.

Dr. Usta directs the Complex Flows and Advanced Transport Lab. His research focuses on transport in flow-responsive systems — where classical models fail because boundaries, material properties, or particles actively respond to the flow — spanning biological flows, membrane separation, and reactive surfaces. His work is supported by the Department of Energy and draws on collaborators across biomedical engineering, materials science, national laboratories, and industry partners.