Alumni Profile

Marko Princevac received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Arizona State in 2003 and his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. At Arizona State University, he won recognition for his work with students, and received an American Meteorological Society scholarship. He has worked as an industrial laboratory and field supervisor in Mexico, and for the roller-bearing industry in Serbia. He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS). He is a member of AMS Committee for Meteorological Applications in Air Pollution (CMAAP)

Dr. Princevac is interested in fundamental and applied fluid mechanics research — in particular, the application of fundamental turbulence concepts to studies in environmental flows. During his graduate studies and a short post-doctoral period afterward, he gained a strong background in laboratory and field experimental work. This helped him identify some physical phenomena and build simple physical (laboratory) models that can successfully explain complex field observations or a part thereof. He also has experience in developing idealized theoretical models to explain fluid dynamic processes. His approach has been to cross-fertilize field measurements with carefully designed laboratory experiments and simple theoretical analysis.

His early research was focused on “engineering flows”, specifically ship’s propulsion and resistance. This research resulted in several polynomial models for the estimation of the power and resistance for the specific type of semi-displacement hull forms. In graduate school he focused his research on thermally driven environmental flows, motivated by tremendous air quality problems that are occurring in cities located in the areas of complex terrain.

Currently, he is focusing on field experimental research on urban flows, specifically on urban dispersion (pollutants or toxic releases, industrial disasters or terrorist attacks) and parameterizations of turbulence within urban canyons. He plans to extend this to encompass numerical work, especially in the area of urban dispersion.