Lisa Prahl Wittberg

Lisa Prahl Wittberg has been a Professor in Fluid Mechanics with a specialisation in Multiphase flows since 2021, leading the Biomedical flows research group at the Department of Engineering Mechanics.

She received her MSc (Mechanical Engineering) from LTH/Lund University and in 2007 got her PhD in Fluid mechanics. She received her Docentship in 2014.

Lisa’s esearch focuses on multiphase flows, such as drops in air or particles suspended in a liquid. Multiphase flows are found in numerous industrial applications, but also in biological flows as the blood flow or the transportation of medicine or pollution particles in the human airways.

Lisa looks at flows found in the human body and in artificial devices for the critically ill. The aim is to improve the understanding of pathological processes and device performance in clinical applications where extracorporeal life support, hemodialysis and respirators are needed. Flowing in artificial devices such as cannulas and blood pumps exposes the blood to situations that differ from normal ones and may increase the risk of complication.

Lisa’s other research topics look at further improving the understanding of the circulatory system in healthy and non-healthy conditions, as well as assessing the uncertainties associated with methodologies used to capture blood flow dynamics. Her research is motivated by clinical needs, translating new engineering-based knowledge to clinical practice, but also to stimulate engineering-based development of mathematical frameworks and experimental methods from an application/clinical perspective.