Location
Olsson Hall, Room 243
Lab
122 Engineer's Way
122 Engineer's Way
Charlottesville, VA 22904

About

Associate Professor Quinn first came to the University of Virginia as an undergraduate student in 2006. After graduating with a BS in Aerospace Engineering, he attended Princeton University and completed a PhD in the Hydrodynamics Lab working on bio-inspired propulsion with Professor Lex Smits. While at Princeton, Quinn was also a Visiting Fellow at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. For his doctoral work, Professor Quinn was awarded the American Physical Society’s Andreas Acrivos Dissertation Award in Fluid Dynamics. He went on to become a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Bio-Inspired Research and Design group at Stanford University, studying the stability characteristics of birds flying in turbulent gusts. Professor Quinn joined the UVA faculty in 2017. He is a member of the Link Lab, a group of researchers studying Cyber-Physical Systems---particularly autonomous vehicles, body sensor networks, and smart homes.

Education

B.S. ​Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia

Ph.D. Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering: Fluid Dynamics, Princeton University

Research Interests

Fluid-Structure Interactions
Biomechanics
Bio-Inspired Robotics
Energy-Harvesting
Cyber-Physical Systems

Selected Publications

Predicting the slowly converging dynamics of asymmetric vortex wakes Q. Zhong & D. Quinn
Revealing the mechanism and scaling laws behind equilibrium altitudes of near-ground pitching hydrofoils T. Han, Q. Zhong, A. Mivehchi, D. Quinn, & K. Moored
Tunable stiffness in fish robotics: mechanisms and advantages D. Quinn & G. Lauder
Tunable stiffness enables fast and efficient swimming in fish-like robots Q. Zhong, J. Zhu, F. Fish, S. Kerr, A. Downs, H. Bart-Smith, D. Quinn

Courses Taught

Aerodynamics I (MEC 3210)
Fluid Mechanics (MEC 6310)

Awards

Thomas E. Hutchinson Award 2023
Pi Tau Sigma Outstanding Faculty Award 2021, 2022, 2023
NSF Career Award 2020
American Physical Society’s Andreas Acrivos Dissertation Award in Fluid Dynamics 2016