NJIT Math Professor Named American Physical Society Fellow
NJIT Mathematics Professor Linda J. Cummings has been named a Fellow by the American Physical Society (APS) for her “outstanding contributions to physics.”
The APS Fellowship Program recognizes members who have made “exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise in physics research, important applications of physics, leadership in or service to physics, or significant contributions to physics education.”
No more than one-half percent of the Society’s more than 50,000 members worldwide are annually recognized by their peers with the distinction — only 153 members earned selection into APS’s class of fellows for 2023.
Cummings is one of eight fellows to be named from the APS’s Division of Fluid Dynamics this year, and the fourth current NJIT faculty member to earn the distinction overall — following professors Lou Kondic (2017), Pushpendra Singh (2007) and Leonid Tsybeskov (2002).
“I’m extremely honored to be named a Fellow of the APS,” said Cummings, also associate dean of research and graduate education in the College of Science & Liberal Arts. “Though it’s framed as a personal recognition of career accomplishments, it couldn’t have happened without the great students and colleagues I’ve been fortunate enough to work with at NJIT since I joined. Each project I take on is very much a team effort — almost all of my publications are coauthored with students or colleagues — so the Fellowship reflects that teamwork.”
Cummings joined NJIT’s Department of Mathematical Sciences in 2008, and since has led key research efforts of fluid dynamics at the micro- or nanoscale. Her work has spanned the modeling and analysis of fluid dynamics applied to everything from glass fiber manufacturing to the flow of nematic liquid crystals found in electronic display devices.
Cummings’ study of small-scale flows was highlighted by the APS, which cited her “for wide-ranging and impactful contributions to the theoretical study of low- Reynolds-number free surface flows.” Such flows are characterized by a low measure of inertial (resistant to change or motion) effects relative to viscous (gluey or thick) effects.
To date, Cummings’s work has been featured in more than 75 peer-review journal articles.
Most recently, Cummings has co-led efforts at NJIT’s Complex Flows and Soft Matter Group in the mathematical modeling of complex flows that are applied in industrial and biomedical systems. The group’s current focus includes developing predictive models for enhancing the performance of membrane filters, as well as cutting-edge modeling that could improve graywater recycling processes by speeding up the extraction of clean water from oil-water mixtures.
Cummings’ APS Fellowship follows a number of honors and distinctions throughout her career. In 2019, she was appointed as a visiting professor at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, during a four-month visit to the Isaac Newton Institute. She has also been invited as visiting professor to the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris (in 2015), and the University of Oxford in the UK (in 2012, at St. Catherine’s College).
In 2021, she received NJIT’s Constance A. Murray Diversity Award, which is awarded to an individual for significant and sustained record of achievement in fostering diversity within the NJIT community.
