Research Interests
Microchannels are of wide interest in several fields from microfluidics to cooling system in electronic devices, fuel cells and gas turbine blades. My current research is focused on the study of mass and heat transfer in microchannels by mean of:
CFD simulation of mass and heat transfer in microchannels
Soft lithography as a microfabrication technology and Optical Doppler Tomography for experimental visualization of flow dynamic fields in microchannels
Biography
Salvatore Cito was born in Asmara (Eritrea) in 1977, after 8 years, in 1985 him and his family were repatriate in Italy due to the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. In Italy he first lived in Forli where he graduated in 1996 in the Aeronautical high school Itaer Francesco Baracca Forli.with excellent results and a private pilot license for Aircraft in the school of flight Aircolumbia.
In 1996 His passion for aeronautical and aerospace engineering brought him to Rome, where he got an 100% Adisu Scholarship to join the Aerospace Engineering Program of the University Roma la Sapienza.
In 2001 he received a one year Erasmus Scholarship to Join the Mechanical and Aerospace department of the University of Prague CVUT,
In 2003 he was accepted to join the General Electric internship program of Nuovo Pignone in Florence. In GE he worked under the supervision of Dr. Alessandro Ciani in the R&D department, and here he specialized in Computational Fluid Dynamic using the commercial code Fluent, for the study of the flow in the internal part of a Gas Turbine.
In June 2004 he received his M.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University Roma la Sapienza.
In September 2004 he joined the university for pilots CESDA (Spain Reus) as associate professor of “Flight Mechanics”, and “Aircraft Performances”. Here he contributed in the definition of the future study program of the new born center, he as well strongly contribute to the international growth of the center establishing several agreement with high schools and aeronautical institutions in Italy. He as well contributed the research in the Aeronautical center promoting fuel cell use in aeronautical field, and organizing the first “Jornada sobre nuevos avances en celdas de combustible”
In February 2005 he was accepted in the doctorate program of University Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona under the supervision of Dr Jordi Pallares of the Ecommfit Group (Mechanical department) , and he cooperate as well with Dr Ioanis Katakis, Principal investigator of DINAMIC and BBG Group, here he worked in the optimization of the Direct Glucose Fuel Cell developed by IMTEK , using the Finite element method program Femlab. And In October 2006 he received The Master degree DEA in “Nanoscience and Nanotechnology” from Chemical engineering school of University Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona Spain).
In April 2005 he spend one month in IMTEK (Freeburg, Germany) and he learned how to replicate The Direct Glucose Fuel Cell developed by IMTEK
In August 2005 he was accepted to participate to the course “Introduction to microfluidics” in the Abdus Salam International Center for Applied Physics in Trieste Italy.
In December 2006 he was invited to join the Zhongping Chen Group At Beckman Laser Institute in the University of California Irvine, to perform Optical Doppler Tomography experiment with capillary driven flow of blood in capillaries. At UCI he cooperated and joined the Marc Madou BioMems research Lab at Mechanical and Aerospace department and he has been trained in microfabrication technique using soft lithography for the prototyping of microfluidics
Education
Ph.D. student in Micro Electromechanical Systems (Mechanical and Chemical department) at the University Rovira i Virgili. (Expected graduation date, 2009).
M.S. in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, University Rovira i Virgili Tarragona (2006) and University of California Irvine. (2007).
M.S. In Aerospace Engineering, University of Roma La Sapienza (2004).
B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering University of Roma La Sapienza (2002).
Maturita Aeronautica Istituto Tecnico Aeronautico Francesco Baracca Forli. (1997).
Languages
Italian mother tongue, English and Spanish very well, and Czech elementary level
Programming languages and Software.
Languages: C+, Fortran ,Pascal.
CFD Codes: Fluent, Femlab
CAD Autocad, Solidwork
Others : Linux, Windows MS office
Experience
Graduate research fellowship Agaur with Professor Marc Madou and Professor Zhongping Chen,UCI. Microfabrication of microchannel in INRF clean room and analysis of capillary driven flow with Optical Doppler Tomography in Beckman Laser Institute. (12/2006-present).
Research fellowship to study capillary driven Flow in microchannel using CFD (Fluent) with Professor Jordi Pallares and Professor Ioanis katakis respectively member of Ecommfit and BBG group (2004-present)
Optimize using simulation tools (FEMLAB) a new generation of Direct glucose fuel cell developed in IMTEK (Germany) under the European Healthy aim project. DINAMIC Tarragona Spain (2004-2006).
Associate Professor of Flight mechanics, Aircraft Performance and Engine at University for pilot CESDA Reus (Spain) (2004-2006)
Internship in the Research and Development section of the General Electric (Nuovo Pignone) Florence with Alessandro Ciani and Professor Fausto Gamma, Simulated the flow dynamic field of the cooling microchannels of the first stage gas turbine blades of GE5 (08/2003- 09/2004)
Awards and accomplishments
Agaur fellowship for graduate students in Beckman Laser Institute University of California
Predoctoral fellowship in Mechanical & Biochemical engineering University Rovira and Virgili (09/2001-09/2002)
Erasmus fellowship Mechanical and Aerospace department of University CVUT of Prague Czech Republic (2001/2002)
Adisu undergraduate fellowship University Roma La Sapienza 1996-2003
Interests and activities
Private license for Aircraft Cesna 150 and 172
Referee in the Italian football league I° category
Photography
Publications:
M.S. Thesis:
Analisi del campo fluidodinamico della serpentina di raffreddamento di una Turbina a gas; Salvatore Cito, Ciani Alessandro, Roberto Gamma. General Electric & University Roma La Sapienza , Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale LIBRARY, (2004).
Modeling of mass transfer in a capillary driven-flow in a micro channel with implications in the performance of a fuel cell. Salvatore Cito, Jordi Pallares, Ioanis Katakis. University Rovira i Virgili 2006
Conference
Modeling of transient electrochemical response of in vitro miniaturized diagnostic devices and biofuel cells Salvatore Cito , Jordi Pallares, Pablo Lozano, Ioanis Katakis XI Trobada Transfronterera sobre Sensors i Biosensors 2006 Girona Spain.
Posters
Numerical simulation of flow and heat/mass transfer processes in micro fluidic devices. Salvatore Cito 2004 CESDA Reus.
